You can select the firmware type for a virtual machine.

You can change your firmware type of a virtual machine after you create the virtual machine.

Prerequisites

  • To change the firmware type of an existing virtual machine, the guest operating system is powered off.

  • The software to boot the system is installed.

  • If you want to select Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) as the firmware type, verify that the following conditions are met:

    • The guest operating system to be installed on the virtual machine supports UEFI firmware.

    • The virtual machine does not have virtualization-based security (VBS) enabled.

    • The virtual machine uses hardware version 8 or later.

    • The virtual machine has a Windows 8, Windows 10, Windows 2012, or Windows 2016 guest operating system.

  • If you want to select UEFI Secure Boot, verify that the following conditions are met.

    • The virtual machine uses the UEFI firmware type.

    • The virtual machine uses hardware version 14 or later.

Procedure

  1. In the Workstation Pro interface, select VM > Settings.
  2. Click the Options tab and click Advanced.
  3. In the Firmware type section, make your firmware selections.

    If the guest operating system is supported and the prerequisites are met, the following firmware types are selectable.

    Option

    Description

    UEFI

    UEFI is an interface between the operating system and the platform firmware. UEFI has architectural advantages over Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) firmware.

    Legacy BIOS

    Standard BIOS firmware.
    Note:

    • Once a guest operating system is installed, changing the firmware type might cause the virtual machine boot process to fail.

    • If you select UEFI, depending on the guest operating system, you might have the option of enabling UEFI Secure Boot. UEFI Secure Boot secures the boot process by preventing the loading of drivers and operating system loaders that are not signed with an acceptable digital signature.

    • If VBS is enabled, the firmware type is set to UEFI and the UEFI Secure Boot option is selected.

    • You cannot edit the firmware type or the UEFI Secure Boot setting when VBS is enabled.

  4. Click OK.

Results

When you start the virtual machine, it boots with the selected firmware configuration.