Windows Server 2019 guest operating system option is not available during virtual machine creation

Products

• VMware Desktop Hypervisor
• VMware vSphere ESXi
• VMware Cloud on AWS

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• No selection for Windows Server 2019 guest operating system is available in vSphere during the process of creating or editing a virtual machine. This affects VMs with a virtual hardware version below 17.

Environment

VMware Fusion 11.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.7
VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0.0
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.5
VMware Workstation Pro 15.x (Windows)

Resolution

Virtual hardware version 17 introduced a new selection for Microsoft Windows Server 2019. See Virtual machine hardware versions to determine which VMware product releases support virtual hardware version 17. 

On products that support virtual hardware version 17, select Microsoft Windows Server 2019 as the guest operating system. 

In all other cases where Microsoft Windows Server 2019 (64bit) is unavailable, select Microsoft Windows Server 2016 (64bit) or Microsoft Windows Server 2016 or later (64bit) as the guest operating system for the virtual machine.

Additional Information

• The VMware Compatibility Guide is the authority on supported configurations of third-party hardware and software, including Guest Operating Systems, certified with vSphere/ESXi releases. In the VMware Compatibility Guide, you will find that support for Windows Server 2019 was introduced with vSphere/ESXi 6.0.
• 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.
• In such cases, the result of successful certification testing for new operating system releases is published in the VMware Compatibility Guide along links to KB articles with any special guidance, including the use of an alternate guest operating selections where an exact match is not available.
• See Virtual machine hardware versions for details regarding support of virtual hardware versions by VMware products.
• See API documentation for respective GuestOS identifier to use in automation scripts.