Microsoft publicly acknowledged a recognized challenge inflicting Home windows Server 2022 digital machine (VM) blue screens and boot failures on VMware ESXi hosts.
Home windows admins reported experiencing VM begin failures [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] after putting in the KB5031364 October 2023 cumulative replace.
Now, Redmond has confirmed these ongoing points, saying that they have an effect on solely VMware ESXi hosts the place admins have put in the replace launched as a part of final month’s Patch Tuesday.
“Affected VMs will obtain an error with a blue display screen and Cease code : PNP DETECTED FATAL ERROR,” Microsoft mentioned in an replace to the Home windows launch well being dashboard.
The recognized challenge solely impacts VMware ESXi hosts with the next configuration:
- ​AMD Epyc bodily processor
- ​”Expose IOMMU to visitor OS” enabled in VMware settings for the VM.
- ​”Allow Virtualization Primarily based Safety” enabled in Home windows Server 2022.
- ​”System Guard Safe Launch” enabled in Home windows Server 2022.
Microsoft’s engineering crew is engaged on fixing these VM boot issues, with a possible repair someday subsequent week.
Short-term workarounds obtainable
To mitigate this recognized challenge, admins can disable the “Expose IOMMU to visitor OS” choice in affected VMs’ settings. Nonetheless, this non permanent repair solely works on some methods, provided that some environments require this selection to be enabled.
Home windows directors with impacted units have additionally famous that uninstalling the problematic KB5031364 replace may even resolve the problem (though it can additionally take away all safety patches it deploys), permitting VMs to start out up once more with none issues.
You are able to do this utilizing the Home windows Replace Standalone Installer (WUSA) software, which helps set up and take away replace packages by way of the Home windows Replace Agent API.
First open an elevated command immediate by clicking the Begin menu, typing cmd, right-clicking the Command Immediate software, and selecting ‘Run as Administrator’, after which run the next command:
wusa /uninstall /kb:5031364Microsoft additionally issued emergency Home windows Server updates in January and December 2022 to repair recognized points inflicting Hyper-V VMs to now not begin and issues whereas creating new VMs on some Hyper-V hosts.
The corporate confirmed an identical challenge earlier this 12 months affecting VMware ESXi VMs with Safe Boot after putting in February 2023 cumulative updates.
VMware issued emergency vSphere ESXi updates days later to repair the basis reason behind the boot points resulting in VMs’ failure to find a bootable working system.
