WilliamLam.com

  • About
    • About
    • Privacy
  • VMware Cloud
  • Tanzu
    • Application Modernization
    • Tanzu services
    • Tanzu Community Edition
    • Tanzu Kubernetes Grid
    • vSphere with Tanzu
  • Home Lab
  • Nested Virtualization
  • Apple
You are here: Home / Workstation / Workaround for sorry this product can not be installed inside of a virtual machine for early VMware Hypervisors

Workaround for sorry this product can not be installed inside of a virtual machine for early VMware Hypervisors

04.12.2023 by William Lam // Leave a Comment

While continuing my exploration trip down memory lane with early VMware Hypervisors such as VMware GSX Server, VMware Server and VMware Workstation, I came across the following error message when attempting to install these hypervisors within a Windows VM:

Sorry this product can not be installed inside of a virtual machine

I guess this would make sense given the ability to run a Hypervisor (Nested Virtualization) within a VM would not be possible for many more years later and this check seemed like a good way to prevent users from having a bad user experience, however it prevent me from continuing.


After a bit of digging and researching, I came to find that there was a workaround for this by inserting a special Windows registry key that would bypass the check. The key would be an empty REG_BINARY called InstallInVM under the path HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\VMware, Inc.\Misc as shown in the screenshot below.


You can also add the Windows registry key by using the following registry script:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\VMware, Inc.\Misc]
"InstallInVM"=hex:

After adding the new registry key, you will need to reboot the system before the change goes into effect and now you can install these early VMware Hypervisors which have these pre-checks.

More from my site

  • VMware 1.0, GSX Server 1.0, Server 1.0 and Workstation 3.0 - Trip down memory lane
  • How to deploy the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) 8.0 to VMware Fusion or Workstation?
  • Workarounds for deploying PhotonOS 2.0 on vSphere, Fusion & Workstation
  • How to deploy the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) 6.5 running on VMware Fusion & Workstation?
  • VM serial logging to the rescue for capturing Nested ESXi PSOD

Categories // Workstation Tags // GSX Server, server, workstation

Thanks for the comment! Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Search

Author

William Lam is a Senior Staff Solution Architect working in the VMware Cloud team within the Cloud Infrastructure Business Group (CIBG) at VMware. He focuses on Cloud Native, Automation, Integration and Operation for the VMware Cloud based Software Defined Datacenters (SDDC) across Private, Hybrid and Public Cloud

Connect

  • Email
  • GitHub
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • Vimeo

Recent

  • Will this Arm SoC work with ESXi-Arm? 06/02/2023
  • Converting VirtualBox VDI (Virtual Disk Image) to VMDK for use with ESXi 8.x 05/31/2023
  • Quick Tip - How to monitor when ESXi filesystem and partitions are filling up? 05/30/2023
  • DDR5 SODIMM capable kits for ESXi 05/30/2023
  • ESXi on ASUS PN64-E1 05/24/2023

Advertisment

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy

Copyright WilliamLam.com © 2023

 

Loading Comments...