Limitations of Host VBS Mode

A Workstation Pro VM running in Host VBS Mode has functional limitations when compared to the VM running in traditional mode.

Depending on the workload, a Host VBS Mode VM can run slower when compared to a VM in traditional mode. The limitations and use overhead introduced by the WHP feature set causes these issues.

Here is a list of functional limitations of a Workstation Pro VM running in Host VBS Mode:

• Nested VMs are not supported:

  x86 virtualization features (Intel VT / AMD-V) are unavailable to a guest running on a Host VBS Mode VM. Therefore such VMs cannot themselves run Windows with Hyper-V or VBS enabled.

• PMCs are not supported:

  x86 performance monitoring counters (PMCs) are unavailable.

• RTM and HLE are not supported:

  Restricted transactional memory and hardware lock elision capabilities are not available.

• PKU is not supported:

  User-mode protection keys capability is not available.