Can I use Windows 2003 x64 Templates to deploy to Intel and AMD hosts?

[Jtokash]

Howdy folks,

My environment consists of a mix of about 35 ESX hosts, most running at least v3.02 or better. For the most part we're running AMD Opteron series dual and quad core process on the older hosts, and newer hosts are powered by Intel X7350 quad core's.

I recently tried to migrate a Server 2003 Std X64 R2 VM from an AMD host running a 64bit capable 8216 model processor, to a host running an Intel X7350 and it failed with the following error.

Unable to migrate from esxhostAMD to esxhostINTEL: Host CPU is incompatible with the virtual machine's requirements at CPUID level 0x80000001 register 'edx'.
hostbits:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000
required:xx1x:xxxx:Xxxx:Xxxx:Xxxx:Xxxx:Xxxx:Xxxx
mismatch detected forthese features:
* longmode; required when a virtual machine is configured for a 64-bit OS

Traditionally I'm used to seeing the 'edx' register error when trying to vmotion between incompatible hosts. However the OS is shutdown here. I have my suspicions (below), but want to confirm there is no way around this? In short, this means I need to maintain my 64bit templates on the same hardware I intend to use it on. In my case its mixed, unless I set a standard moving forward now.

My presumption, from what I've gathered is the AMD and Intel 64 bit capable chipsets do not have all of the same instructions. 64bit OS's like Windows know how to use one or the other, but clearly different files/libraries/instructions used, which preclude the ability to change the hardware in the background, even if the OS/VM is powered off.

Can anyone confirm this? or clarify if I don't have it right?

[Dave_Mishchenko · Accepted solution]

Do you have Intel VT enabled on your new hosts? It is typically disabled and you should do a hard reset after you enable it in the BIOS.

[Jtokash]

That was exactly it, I found it about 30 minutes before you replied. I was tinkering around, testing deploy's with the 64bit templates we built, and realized I couldn't power them up on the Intel hosts.

Googling, I found out about it through a page regarding vmware workstation. The page, a bit outdated ref'd it as being experimental. Is this for workstation only? that its experimental? Or is this the appropriate way to operate these in a production Vi3 environment?

Regardless, they are running rock solid now.

[Dave_Mishchenko]

The VT setting is fully supported and the only way to run x64 VMs on Intel processors. Here's a good thread on why VT must be enabled - http://communities.vmware.com/message/931364.