VM /ETC

Unlike Windows Sever and various Linux distributions that have separate installation media for 32 bit and 64 bit versions, there is only one VMware ESX installation CD. If you have 64 bit hardware you need to download and install the same media available at https://www.vmware.com/download/vi/ that you would use for 32 bit hardware. There is an additional requirement and configuration for 64 bit guest VMs, however.

To enable hosting of virtual machines running 64 bit operating systems and applications you must have an ESX host that has CPUs with modern virtualization assist technologies. This would be either the Intel-VT or the AMD-V processors. Once you have hardware with these processors you need to enable them in the server BIOS. A common example for enabling this feature would be to hit whatever key your hardware requires duing boot (F2, F12, DEL, F9, etc), and then once in the BIOS go to Advanced Features > Processors > Virtualization Assist. This will vary from manufacturer to manufacturer.

Note that you can install ESX with virtualization assist disabled, and you can P2V or build 32 bit VMs without issue, but once you try to add a 64 bit guest

To check a running ESX host from the Service Console to see if virtualization assist is enabled run the following commands:

for Intel processors

#esxcfg-info -w | grep -i vt

for AMD processors

#esxcfg-info -w | grep -i hv

Also check out the CPU Identification Utility to display CPU features for VMotion compatibility, EVC and 64-bit VMware support.

vmware, virtualization, 64bit, intel-vt, and-v

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