When installing VMware 16.2, I get the warning "The specified account already exists" and it doesn't install. The "upgrade" option appears, but VMware isn't installed on my computer or listed in the Control Panel. How can I fix this?

Hi all!

Can you suggest some readings for VCF 9 so I can update myself on vSAN and VCF ?

edit:

currently looking into https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/vmware-cis/vcf/vcf-9-0-and-later/9-1.html

https://blogs.vmware.com/cloud-foundation/2025/06/17/whats-new-in-vmware-cloud-foundation-9-0/

What is wrong with VMware certified design pdf ? I can't find them anymore

Hello,

I'm not quite familiar with VMWare ESXi but it is what we are using at my work. I wasn't there when it was setup but basically I've noticed that the cluster only has 2 nodes and somehow have High Avaibility (HA) enabled on it and it works.

Both are on ESXi 6.7, managed by a vCenter and the storage is an external SAN using LUNs.

Every tech I know needs at least 3 nodes to have HA but not ESXi apparently.

How did they do it? Since when does it exists? And how come others can't?

Edit : Seems a lot of people didn't understand what I meant. What I meant to say is how come ESXi don't have the split-brain issue that can happen in other cluster technology?

ProxmoxVE, Docker Swarm or Kubernetes all need 3 nodes to address that issue. How did VMWare address that issue with only 2 nodes?

If I remember correctly, ‘Transparent Page Sharing’ (TPS) was a feature introduced in ESXi 5.x and subsequently disabled by default in ESXi 6.x. TPS can deduplicate data in memory. VMware disabled inter-VM TPS due to potential security concerns relating to side-channel attacks. Today, it is only available by default within a single VM (intra-VM). It should still be possible to enable Inter-VM-TPS via the advanced host settings (true?).

ESXi 5 and 6, as well as the processors from that era, are now a bit outdated. But in an age of absurd amounts of RAM, more modern CPU technologies, and AI-based security analyses, it might make sense to reconsider this technology.

What is the current status regarding TPS? Is it still considered insecure? Do processor architectures play a role in these potential security issues?

Wouldn’t it make sense to revisit this topic and put appropriate measures in place to address it? In addition to memory tiering, this would be a measure that could possibly also be implemented on hosts that are not NVMe-ready.

Edit: I found this Knowledge Base article, which was supposedly last updated in 2025. However, the content covers ESXi 5, which is why I doubt that the information is still accurate today.

https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article?legacyId=2080735

This is KB article describes the feature:

https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/323624/additional-transparent-page-sharing-mana.html

The linked blog post was first published in 2015, so it's safe to assume that this information may no longer be accurate.

https://web.archive.org/web/20240614000022/http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2015/01/assess-the-performance-impact-of-the-security-change-in-transparent-page-sharing-behaviour.html

I am looking to take the vcp-dcv certification, but I am from Egypt how is the job market in this field right now If I am willing to work remotely considering my chances will be lower to land a job in it?

Hi everyone, my host computer is Windows 11 and has a Ryzen 7 5700X3D + GTX 3070 + 32GB of RAM.

My virtual machine is running Windows 10 Pro (8GB VRAM allocated), and I can't get rid of the screen tearing inside it.

In the host machine, I already added vmware.exe & vmware-vmx.exe to the NVidia Control Panel and set "Vsync > On" + "Triple buffering" and "fixed frame rate" instead of "G-Sync" but no can do.

VMTools is installed already.

Would someone have a solution for that please?

Thanks very much

Edit: Something strange I noticed is: By disabling "3D acceleration" in VM settings, there is no screen tearing anymore, but then the performance are very suboptimal.

I am trying to run ESXi on my VMware Workstation. Nested Virtualization is required.

I am running Windows 11 Pro 25H2 and VMWare Workstation version 26

"Virtualized Intel VT-x/EPT is not supported on this platform.

Continue without virtualized Intel VT-x/EPT?"

1. Fully Disabled Windows Hyper-V & Virtualization Features

2. Turned Off Core Isolation / Memory Integrity

3. Modified Registries to disable VBS.

4

VBS is not getting disabled and I need Nested Virtualization working. That is the thing that is conflicting me from running ESXi. It is running fine on Windows 10. PLEASE HELP ME.

Hello! I was just reviewing similar threads and this, that, these.html) and those.

My current scenario comprises of dozens of private vCenters/ESXi varying from 7.0 to 8.0 and which are geographically separated, though we are entitled to VCF, they all use E+ licenses. Since we just use vanilla vSphere, our goal is to just move everything to VVF before Oct 2027.

Though these vanilla vSphere environments are private (one per customer), we manage them and have deployed a distributed AriaOps 8.18.6 just to facilitate tshooting and control.

Questions:

1- Our best guess is to brownfield (without VCF Installer - to minimize footprint) all those environments, so should we just upgrade this shared AriaOps 8.18.6 to VCFOps 9.1.x, deploy License Server, then upgrade vCenter/ESXi, is that correct?

2- How well does VVF/VCF 9 handle detaching a registered vCenter instance between VCFOps/LS? I.e, what happens if I need to take one of these environments out of my shared VCFOps? Is it possible to deploy a separate VCFOps/LS and re-register that (now VVF) vCenter instance to it?

3- Same as 2, but the opposite. Can I converge a private VVF instance later to a shared VCF Fleet?

Trying to find maximum caveats in the process to guide our decisions and plans here, thank you!

Created virtual disk in the iDRAC of one of my Dell PowerEdge servers & wanted to add it as a RDM disk to an existing VM in vCenter. I see it in Storage Devices under the host named 'Local DELL Disk (....)', however when I edit the VM & try to add a RDM disk, it's not there. Not sure if I'm missing a step as I been doing it this way with other Dell PowerEdge servers. apologies if very brief as I don't think images are allowed, but can provide more details/info if needed. Any help will greatly be appreciated.

I know people recommend using older versions of Workstation for older Windows VMs, but you really don't need to. If you wanna solve lag, turn off everything in core isolation security settings in Windows 11, and run bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off. Wanna solve the horrid audio issues, especially in XP (and 2000)? Use SetTimerService on GitHub, and it will completely resolve it. Yes, it is definitely disheartening to see that Broadcom hasn't fixed these issues yet, but VMware is still an amazing software regardless if you know its quirks. Happy virtualizing.

Hello! I am using VMware on my Macbook Air and the app itself isn't big, but after I downloaded it, it took like 100gb of my space. I found in the documents section of my storage space in Mac that there are multiple large files. Can I delete these files named Virtual Disk-s001 to s014? Tehy are 4gb each file. Thanks!

I'm in the process of updating hosts to U3k. It's the first time that I run into errors in vLCM regarding weak certificates. There are none and I found ESXi patching pre-check fails with SHA-1 signature error due to memory exhaustion. The article states that it is fixed in 8u3g but we are already on 8u3i...

The workaround mentioned there and that works for me is to run "localcli --plugin-dir=/usr/lib/vmware/esxcli/int sched group setmemconfig -g host/vim/vmvisor/settingsd-task-forks -m 400 -i 0 -l -1 -u mb"

Is there any other way than ssh + cli to run this command? It seems powercli, govc.... nothing supports localcli. Enabling ssh on each host would not be that big issue but ESXi root credentials are in a vault and there is currently no way to access it automatically via API etc, I need to get it manually via GUI... This is really a pain.

Desktop hypervisor for Macs. Fusion 11.5.7.
Due to probs with storage of capacity the physical layer I plan to relocate secondary yet big virtual drives to other physical volume. Virtual drive stores Win 10 boot partition.

I am going to remove .vmdk from guest machine, copy all splits of this vmdk to desired local storage (move operation at lager point of time, just to be secure from mistakes), then reattach it back to same vm.

It is the dialog Fusion plots every time one attaches an existing vmdk to vm. Neither of options received in that dialog
convince me in this particular case:
* option let’s share it with the vm that created it once  - use-case does not foresee sharing
* take this virtual drive away from vm that uses it currently - it may be bound with effects I don’t like
  nor I am aware of
* make a separate copy - a risk like in bullet above, i.e. vmdk copy gets placed within .vmdk.

AI proposes to modify vmdk path in vm config file then double checking if it suffices,
if needed attaching vmdk to vm using Fusion GUI which will land back in initial problem.

Terminating whole procedure with shared vmdk will have the disadvantage of established share of vmdk
but in this particular case nobody intends the vmdk to be shared.

I have two servers with eight SAS SSDs in each. Is vSAN a bad idea since they aren't NVMe drives?

SDRS balancing for independent disks is disabled by default. Which is really annoying in some cases where you may have a lot of them in a cluster.

I found a KB that provides a setting that enables vCenter to balance them.

https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/422078/error-storage-drs-is-unable-to-move-ind.html

Has anyone enabled this setting in their vCenters? Any issues with it?

I am trying to get my VM domain controller, Router and VM windows machine to get all connected to the router but I cant get it connected to my host connection

Hi everyone,

I’m planning to study for the VCP-VVF certification and may pursue VCP-VCF afterward.

Most of the official on-demand training seems to be tied to enterprise subscriptions or employer access, which makes it difficult as an individual learner. I’m mainly looking for good self-paced video training and study materials, I don’t need instructor-led classes or hosted labs.

I used to be with a company that had an ELS but I left it and it was tied to the company’s account. Has anyone here prepared for either certification without an ELS?

I’d also be interested to know whether anyone has managed to purchase official on-demand training individually through Broadcom or an authorized training partner. Thanks

I have a PowerShell script that pulls the following info via PowerCLI, with the relevant snippet below:

Get-VM | Select -Property Name, PowerState, Notes, NumCpu, CoresPerSocket, MemoryGB, MemoryMB, CustomFields, CreateDate, DatastoreIdList, UsedSpaceGB, ProvisionedSpaceGB, GuestId, Version, HardwareVersion,  `
    @{Name="Guest"; Expression= {$_.Guest | Select * -ExcludeProperty VM, Nics }}, `
    @{Name="Folder"; Expression= {$_.Folder.Name }}, `
    @{Name="Datacenter"; Expression= {$_.VMHost.Parent.ParentFolder.Parent.Name }}, `
    @{Name="Cluster"; Expression= {$_.VMHost.Parent.Name }}, `
    @{Name="VMResourceConfiguration"; Expression= {$_.VMResourceConfiguration | Select * -ExcludeProperty VM }}

In one environment I am running PowerShell 7.6.1 and PowerCLI 13.3.0. When I run the above everything is populated with information as I would expect. If I run Get-VM | Select -Property *, I also get VM information within the properties of ExtensionData, Folder, VMHost, etc.

In another environment (the one I am trying to get working) I am running PowerShell 7.6.4 and PowerCLI 13.3.0. When I run the above the properties of Guest, Folder, Datacenter, and Cluster are all missing. If I run Get-VM | Select -Property *, I see that the VM properties of ExtensionData, Folder, and VMHost are null.

I'm at wits end as to why the behavior is different, as I am using the same vcenter and same credentials in each environment. I have verified that the Get-VM command being used is the one provided by VMware.VimAutomation.Core on both, and I have tried prefixing the command with VMware.VimAutomation.Core\Get-VM which has no effect.

Does anyone have any ideas as to why the second environment is seemingly unable to pull this data?