Windows 11 guest operating system option is not available during virtual machine creation

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• No selection for Windows 11 guest operating system is available in vSphere during the process of creating or editing a virtual machine.
• You see this issue in virtual machines with virtual hardware version 19 and below.
• For more information, see Virtual machine hardware versions (1003746)

Environment

VMware vSphere 7.0.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.7

Cause

• The best practice for configuration of a virtual machine is to use the Guest OS selection that best matches the operating system running in the virtual machine. However, an exact match may not be available for a specific operating system. Typically this is a result of cases where a new operating system was released after a particular vSphere release already became generally available.

Resolution

On products that support virtual hardware version 19 and below, where Microsoft Windows 11 (64bit) is unavailable, select Microsoft Windows 10 (64 bit) as the guest operating system for the virtual machine.

Refer to VMware Compatibility Guide for information on supported guest operating system for different ESXi versions.