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64-bit virtual machine on a 32-bit host powers on with no warning
Details
When you power on a 64-bit virtual machine that exists on a 32-bit ESX host, the virtual machine powers on with no error messages printed to the host or client screen.
Solution
The virtual machine automatically falls back to 32-bit mode so that it can power on.
Look in vmware.log for the warning:
Msg_Post: Warning
[msg.cpuid.noLongmode] You have configured this virtual machine as a 64-bit guest operating system. However, this host's CPU is not capable of running 64-bit virtual machines or this virtual machine has 64-bit support disabled.
This issue does not occur with ESX 4.0 and later. ESX 4.0 and later require 64-bit hosts.
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