The windows server 2025 VM powers on but is stuck in a boot loop and fails to move to the boot menu.

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

The windows server 2025 fails to deployed on the cluster which has EVC enabled with Merom processor.

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 8.x Appliance

Cause

1. Windows Server 2025 has specific system requirements, including a 64-bit CPU with certain instruction set support, which are unlikely to be met by Merom processors.
2. Processor performance depends not only on the clock frequency of the processor, but also on the number of processor cores and the size of the processor cache. The following are the processor requirements.

Minimum:

• • 1.4 GHz 64-bit processor
  • Compatible with x64 instruction set
  • Support for NX and DEP
  • Support for CMPXCHG16b, LAHF/SAHF, and PrefetchW instructions
  • Support for Second Level Address Translation (EPT or NPT)
  • Support for the SSE4.2 (Streaming SIMD Extensions 4.2) instruction set

Resolution

Please change the VMware EVC CPU mode to Sandy Bridge or higher for the Windows server 2025 VM successfully enter the boot menu.

Additional Information

List of Intel CPU microarchitectures

Hardware requirements for Windows Server 2025

VMware EVC and CPU Compatibility FAQ