VMWare Workstation 16 not supported on my system; what are my options?

[Trevin]

After installing Workstation 16 for Linux on my system (running Fedora 32) and obtaining a license key,  I proceeded to try creating a new VM with Windows XP.  The initial setup proceeded automatically and then the VM powered down when a reboot was required.  After restarting the machine I got an error: “VMWare Workstation unrecoverable error (svga) unexpected signal: 4”.  From searching the forums for this error it seems that since version 15 VMWare no longer supports the AMD Phenom II processor, which is what my system has.  This was not clearly indicated in the compatibility guides (they only reference AMD architectures, and I have no idea what architecture the Phenom II is based on) and I assumed Workstation would have alerted me when I installed it if it wasn’t compatible with my system, which it did not.  Is there anything I can do other than taking a $200 loss on this product that won’t work on my system?

[Arcanan]

Ha, ha.

Because of this I buy a new computer. So either stay with older version or buy a new PC.

[wila]

Hi,

Besides getting another computer, there are afaict two options.

For both of those you will have to contact sales

You can ask for a refund, which they should give unless you did the purchase a long time ago.

Another option is to ask sales to downgrade your license to work with version 15.

Hope this helps,
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Wil

[wila]

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@Arcanan wrote:

Ha, ha.

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Moderator hat on:
This isn't reddit, please show some respect when someone asks for help.
Thanks.

--
Wil

[Trevin]

Thanks, Wil.  I’ll have to see whether version 15 can install on my system — I specifically updated to Fedora 32 since it’s the most recent version that is supported by Workstation 16, but the latest version of Fedora supported by Workstation 15 seem to be Fedora 30.  I’m still within 30 days since purchase … but those days are running out soon.

[wila]

For using Workstation 15 against newer kernels you might want to check out this repository from mkubecek: https://github.com/mkubecek/vmware-host-modules

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Wil

[Trevin]

Well, first thing of course is CPU compatibility.  Looking through the forums and compatibility guides I haven’t been able to find a definitive answer as to exactly which version of Workstation was the last to support the AMD Phenom II processor.  And I don’t want to run into another situation where I get a license for version 15 only to find out that one crashes too due to incompatibility.  I’m half-tempted to try upgrading the CPU, but its confusing trying to figure out which brand names have which architecture and are compatible with my motherboard (it’s an AM3+ socket which I’ve read was designed for the “bulldozer” architecture, but not all AM3+ CPU’s are necessarily compatible with the BIOS), plus that would be a rather expensive and potentially very risky change.  I’d much rather stick with my existing hardware as long as it’s operational.

[Trevin]

For what it’s worth, I still also have RedHat 6.8 installed on this system and VMware Workstation 7 runs perfectly fine on it with all of my existing VM’s, so I can continue using that until a solution is available for the more recent OS.

[bluefirestorm · Accepted solution]

The AMD Phenom II was launched in 2008, part of the K10 microarchitecture. K10 is one generation behind Bulldozer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenom_II
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_10h

The last major CPU requirement change was with version 14. I don't know what exact feature Workstation 14/15/16 looks for in AMD CPUs. With Intel CPUs, it is pretty clear (the unrestricted guest feature). If we take the release notes at face value (requires any CPU from 2011 or later with few exceptions), Phenom II would also not work even with version 14.

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Workstation-Pro/14/rn/workstation-14-release-notes.html#System%20R...

[Trevin]

Thanks, bluefirestorm — that eliminates a downgrade to WS 15 as a possibility.

After checking my motherboard’s CPU compatibility guide, it looks like besides the Phenom II it also supports a few of the Opteron and FX models.  Conveniently this compatibility guide also shows the models’ architectures — about half of the FX’s are “Bulldozer” and the others are “Vishera” — no idea whether the latter is compatible since the Wikipedia page for Vishera redirects to Bulldozer.  It would be great if VMware didn’t have dependencies on a specific microarchitecture … or better yet, if they could just list specific CPU features it needs (e.g. “fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic …”) since I could easily look those up from /proc/cpuinfo without having to go through all this research on which models have which microarchitectures and whether one microarchitecture is older or newer than another.

[bluefirestorm]

The fact that you could install version 16 and power up a VM and then crash on an unsupported AMD CPU means
(1) the installer is not checking for the feature
(2) the powerup of the VM is not checking for presence/absence of the feature

With the Intel CPUs, Workstation Pro/Player 14/15/16 does check for the "unrestricted guest" during VM power up. However, this feature cannot be seen as a flag from /proc/cpuinfo. It can be seen from MSR 0x485h bit 5 or the "Unrestricted guest" as {0,1} in the vmware.log. Fortunately with Intel, it looks like it is clear cut that this feature is available from Westmere microarchitecture and onwards. You can't find this information in the Intel ARK pages though.

So even if VMware does document to say "X" feature is required from AMD CPUs for versions 14/15/16, it may not be as simple as looking at flags in /proc/cpuinfo or some AMD product webpage.

From what I understand Opteron is like a competitive brand name against Intel Xeon. Xeon spans different microarchitectures so Opteron probably does as well.

As for the compatibility of your motherboard to Bulldozer CPUs, it looks like the Socket AM3+ (Bulldozer) is backward compatible to Socket AM (K10) subject to motherboard BIOS support.

https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/amd/packages/socket_am3%2B
https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/amd/packages/socket_am3

I suppose that is possible similar to Intel Westmere Xeon CPUs can replace Nehalem Xeon CPUs as they are socket compatible despite that Nehalem CPUs won't be able to run Workstation 14/15/16 although Westmere CPUs can.

But the socket and motherboard/BIOS compatibility is just a start, RAM compatibility is something to consider as well (looks like AM3+ supports DDR3 but not DDR2).

It is up to you then if you want to find an old AMD Bulldozer CPU and possibly old DDR3 RAM to replace the Phenom II/DDR2 RAM based on your own cost-benefit analysis and also risk that it won't work/fail versus buying a whole new system to run version 16.

[bluefirestorm]

One more thing, XP VM 3D accelerated graphics looks like is broken on a Debian/Ubuntu host with Nvidia GPU in version 15/16. One possible workaround is to use nouveau driver instead of the Nvidia proprietary driver.

https://communities.vmware.com/t5/VMware-Workstation-Pro/Windows-XP-guest-stuck-in-640x480-4-bit/m-p...