When you’re trying to run 64-bit hosts on a virtualized ESXi host you may get the following error:
Power On virtual machine ***
The virtual machine requires hardware features that are unsupported or disabled on the target host: *
Longmode : required for 64-bit guest OS support. On Intel systems, longmode requires VT- x to be enabled in the BIOS. On nested virtual ESX hosts, longmode support normally requires upgrading your VM to ESX 5.1 compatibility level (VM version 9) and enabling the “Virtualized Hardware Virtualizati- on” flag on the outer VM.
For incompatibil- ities other than NX/XD or longmode : if possible, use a cluster with Enhanced vMotion Compatibili- ty (EVC) enabled; see KB article 1003212.
CPUID details: incompatibil- ity at level 0x80000001 register ‘edx’ . Host bits: 0000:1000:- 0001:0000:- 0000:1000:- 0000:0000 Required: xx1x:xxxx:- xxxx:xxxx:x- xxx:xxxx:xx- xx:xxxx
To make it works follos steps below:
1.Open vCenter server using vSphere Web client and Power off your Nested ESXi host
2. Open datastore which placed on Virtual Nested ESXi host and download .vmx file on your computer.
3. Edit .vmx file and add vhv.enable = “TRUE” to .vmx file.
4. Upload edited .vmx file to datastore and power on Virtual Nested ESXi host.
After that you will be able to power on VMs.
