Windows Virtual Machine BSOD occurs in HTTP.sys with Error Code 0x7E

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• A Windows OS virtual machine crashes unexpectedly.
• The vmware.log of the crashed virtual machine contains the following output:
  

  WinBSOD: Synthetic MSR[0xXXXXXXXX] 0x7e  
  WinBSOD: Synthetic MSR[0xXXXXXXXX] 0xffffffffc0000005  

• Crash dump analysis using WinDbg confirms the crash occurs in the HTTP.sys driver of the System process.
  For example, if you load a memory dump with WinDbg and run !analyze -v, you will get the following output:

  PROCESS_NAME:  System  
  IMAGE_NAME:  HTTP.sys  

Environment

VMware ESXi 8.x

Cause

A BSOD with Error Code 0x7E occurs due to a memory access violation by a system thread.

Bug Check 0x7E: SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED

Since the crash takes place within the HTTP.sys driver, this indicates a failure within the Windows kernel.
Therefore, the Windows OS is the likely cause of the issue.

Resolution

Engage the Microsoft Support to investigate the cause of the virtual machine crash.