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Windows 8 on ESXi 5.0?

Duncan Epping · Sep 18, 2011 ·

I saw a couple of questions on the VMTN Communities around running Windows 8 Dev Preview on ESXi 5.0 and support and the fact that it doesn’t work. Although the OS is listed in the dropdown list after you have created a VM it does not mean it is supported. Support for Operating Systems should always be validated through the following page: http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?deviceCategory=software. Currently Windows 8 Dev Preview is not on the list and as such not supported, which means no guarantee that it will work. As some have already noticed it won’t work (HAL_INITIALIZATION_FAILED), for now… as I am sure the engineers at VMware are working on it as I am typing this article. (That’s no guarantee a solution / workaround will come in the near future though.)

There’s a KB article on this topic http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2006859, if you are interested I would suggest bookmarking it or subscribing to it.

I want to point out though that you can run Windows 8 in Workstation 8 or Fusion 4. Yes I know that these are paid products, but you can download the eval version which is valid for 30 days. Workstation 8 comes with VMware Player 4.0, which is completely free! (Not available as a separate download yet unfortunately.)

Installing Windows 8 is straight forward, just use the Windows 7 – 64 Bit profile that is part of both Fusion and Workstation.

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Desktop, Server 5, 5.0, esxi, windows 8

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Comments

  1. Doug Hazelman says

    18 September, 2011 at 14:10

    I bet someone will eventually find a hack to get it to work on vShpere 5 (maybe even 4.1 for that matter) 😉

  2. sqaopen says

    19 September, 2011 at 13:59

    Hi !

    I’ve been able to run windows 8 Developer Preview both on a vSphere 4.1 and 5.
    This method is a bit special, but it works.
    You can read the article on my blog: http://www.sqaopen.net

    If you have a better way, I need to know !
    🙂

    • Duncan Epping says

      19 September, 2011 at 15:48

      Well not exactly what most people are looking for I guess 🙂

      • Tinkerer Guy says

        19 September, 2011 at 16:59

        Duncan, great post, and I’ve been blogging about this too:
        http://tinkertry.com/windows8download

        Today, I’ve noticed that VMware has perhaps pulled down the kb article you reference above, as of 10:47 am eastern on 9/19:
        http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2006859

        However, searches for that kb still work and show the title of the result:
        http://search.vmware.com/search?cn=vmware&cc=www&client=VMware_Site&entqr=0&ud=1&output=xml_no_dtd&proxystylesheet=VMware_gsa_Site&site=VMware_Site&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=2006859&x=0&y=0

        so, meanwhile, here’s the cached version:
        http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:06KTtb2WcfoJ:kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/microsite.do%3Fcmd%3DdisplayKC%26docType%3Dkc%26externalId%3D2006859%26sliceId%3D1%26docTypeID%3DDT_KB_1_1+kb.vmware.com/kb/2006859&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

        but since the actual page is gone, no way to subscribe to notifications when VMware has fixed this that I can find.

      • Tinkerer Guy says

        19 September, 2011 at 17:02

        Just found a new working link for the same info as the original kb 2006859 article:
        http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/microsite.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=2006859&sliceId=1&docTypeID=DT_KB_1_1

      • sqaopen says

        23 September, 2011 at 09:32

        Yes, I know…
        Everybody wants to have the ability to deploy a VM with Windows 8 directly on vsphere. But if you really need to have a windows 8 installed, and usable by your developer team to check their software on this platform, you have 2 solutions :
        – install windows 8 on a physical server
        – follow my post and install it on a VM which is itself on a vm in your vsphere 4.1 or 5.0.

        My developers team is using this way for a week and it works… We can wait vmware to update both vsphere 4.1 and 5.0, and use windows 8 during this time.

      • Peakbagger says

        11 October, 2011 at 00:52

        I don’t understand how there is not more demand for a how-to for Windows 8 on ESX 4.1 – have most people migrated to ESX 5.0 and the new licensing terms already? If so, we and our client base are waaaay behind…

  3. Larry says

    19 September, 2011 at 21:53

    I can run vshpere 5 on Hyper V 3 in Windows 8 Server:)

  4. stoked says

    20 September, 2011 at 06:35

    Was able to get Windows 8 Development Preview working in Virtualbox using the Win7 64bit profile.

  5. Paul C says

    25 September, 2011 at 03:15

    Works fine with no special config on workstation 8.

  6. Kerry M says

    29 September, 2011 at 01:49

    Couldn’t get the Developer Preview to install on a bare virtual (ESXi 4.1). It looks like it is installing fine on top of an existing Win7 VM.

    • Kerry M says

      29 September, 2011 at 04:13

      Sorry, the install could not complete.

  7. Martin says

    2 October, 2011 at 22:54

    As Stoked pointed out, the Windows 8 preview runs fine within Virtualbox. It’s a free download so was the perfect solution for me.

    It may not be ideal for all environments but to just play with it inside a VM on your own client PC it does the job.

  8. hina says

    18 January, 2012 at 08:41

    There is no option of Windows 8 in drop down list of vsphere when we go and create a virtual machine:(
    so is ESX going to include Windows 8 in it as its hampering our work cos we migrated to ESX v5 now.

  9. Mohsen says

    28 March, 2012 at 10:50

    please visit:
    http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2006859

  10. CAVARPE says

    9 April, 2012 at 18:36

    I have the latest version of the Widnows 8 Build 8306 in ESXi 5.0 with out a problem.

  11. KMack says

    14 April, 2012 at 20:07

    How are you able to get Windows Server 8 – Beta to work o Esxi?

    Thanks in advance for your help.

    Kevin

  12. KMack says

    14 April, 2012 at 20:33

    I’m just downloaded
    en_windows_server_8-beta_x64_dvd_810648.iso

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About the author

Duncan Epping is a Chief Technologist in the Office of CTO of the Cloud Platform BU at VMware. He is a VCDX (# 007), the author of the "vSAN Deep Dive", the “vSphere Clustering Technical Deep Dive” series, and the host of the "Unexplored Territory" podcast.

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