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vSphere 8.0 Update 1c resolves Windows VBS performance & Hyper-V Generation 2 Nested VM running on AMD CPU

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vSphere 8.0 Update 1c was just released and one of the resolved issues mentioned in the ESXi release notes is the following:

Nested virtual machines on AMD CPUs with operational systems such as Windows with virtualization-based security (VBS) might experience performance degradation, timeouts, or unresponsiveness due to an issue with the virtualization of AMD's Rapid Virtualization Indexing (RVI), also known as Nested Page Tables (NPT).

UPDATE (10/11/23) - This is also resolved in the ESXi 7.0 Update 3o release

There are two scenarios in which this fix resolves:

  1. Running Windows Server VM with a Hyper-V enabled Generation 2 VM (Nested Virtualization) on AMD CPU
  2. Running Windows Server VM with VBS Enabled (Non-Nested VM) on AMD CPU

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Refresher on Nested ESXi Networking Requirements

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Using Nested Virtualization and specifically Nested ESXi, which is running ESXi inside of a VM, has become so automatic and second nature for me and many in the VMware community, that I sometimes forget we still have brand new users who are experiencing ESXi for the very first time.

Nested ESXi is an extremely powerful capability for so many different use cases from development, testing and general learning purposes. Before jumping in and deploying your Nested ESXi environment, which I highly recommend using my Nested ESXi Virtual Appliances, you need to make sure that you have proper networking setup or you will run into all sorts of strange issues. For all VMware Nested Virtualization resources, tips and tricks, you will definitely want to bookmark this page HERE.

Disclaimer: Nested Nested ESXi is not officially supported by VMware and Nested Virtualization is only supported under limited scenarios. For more details, please refer to this VMware KB 2009916.

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How to install all versions of ESX and ESXi in VM?

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Thanks goodness for Virtualization and the ability to easily install ANY operating system inside of a vSphere Virtual Machine including the very first release of ESX 1.0, which is more than 22 years old now.


While going through the process of installing each of the major VMware ESX and ESXi releases, I had made notes for each of the VM configurations that I had used and any other issues I may have ran into. Figured I share this information in case anyone might be interested and this would also provide an online searchable reference in case I ever need to do this again for my future-self 😀

In addition to recording each installation, which you can watch via the Youtube playlists below, I also had some fun putting together this short compilation that summarizes all the VMware ESX and ESXi releases over the past 22 years. Definitely recommend checking it out and be sure to 👍🔊😉

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