Downgrade VMware Workstation: Fix the Processor does not support xsave on VMware Workstation

In this article, you will learn how to Downgrade VMware Workstation in order to fix the Processor does not support xsave on VMware Workstation. If you installed Workstation 17.5, it appears to have a hard requirement for a Sandy Bridge or later architecture Intel processor that contains the XSAVE instruction. Please see How to upgrade and downgrade PIP on Windows, How to upgrade and downgrade PIP on Windows, and How to install Windows Server 2022 on VMware Workstation. Below is an interesting conversation from the VMware community.

The XSAVE instructions provide a performance/efficiency boost to the virtualization processing. The VMware supported processor advice is imprecise and misleading. I believe they really mean Sandy Bridge or later generation Intel CPUs. Sandy Bridge CPUs were introduced in 2011, and I believe this is what VMware means when they say “processor introduced in 2011 and later”.

I also suspect this includes Atom/Celeron/Pentium CPUs based on Sandy Bridge or later architectures. There were Atom processors released after 2011 that are based on pre-Sandy Bridge microarchitectures. We’ve seen instances where users are reporting that they don’t work with Workstation 17.5 for the same reason: no XSAVE instruction. I don’t know for sure if later generation Atom CPUs will work. Your option as I see it is to back off to Workstation 17.0 or remain on Workstation 16.

Below are the system requirements. Based on the conversation above, I did everything to work around this issue, but no success. Therefore, I had to downgrade eventually. For Processor Requirements for Host System

• Intel Sandy Bridge or newer CPU
• AMD Bulldozer or newer CPU

For Supported Host Operating Systems

• Windows 10 20H1 build 19041.264 or newer according to the VMware documentation.

Why was the error prompted?

The device processor lacks the requirements and is not compatible. To fix this issue, you might need to consider upgrading your hardware to a processor that supports the required virtualization features. Below is the error prompted after upgrading to VMware Workstation 17.x

You can use third-party tools or commands to check if your processor supports the required features. For example, CPU-Z is a popular tool for checking processor details. Or use the native windows feature called Task manager. On the performance tab, you should be able to find the CPU information.

Note: The command to disable or remove the hyperv feature does not work.

Solution: Downgrade VMware Workstation 17 to v16

To downgrade your virtual machine hardware compatibility, please follow the steps below.

Shut down the virtual machine. Downgrade the virtual hardware by right-clicking the virtual machine and click Manage.

Click Change Hardware Compatibility. The Change Hardware Compatibility Wizard opens.

Click Next, then select Workstation 16.0 Pro  from the Hardware Compatibility dropdown.Click Next.

On the wizard below, click Next.

Under the Hardware Compatibility, select the version you wish to downgrade to.

Desired version selected.

Select your choice when asked to create a clone or alter the virtual machine. Click Next.

Click Finish, and click Close.

Now the option to upgrade is now available to the VM again.

For my second VM

Since I have not upgraded it before, I have the option to upgrade via the VMware library.

Follow the same steps as above!

See how to use the Program Compatibility Troubleshooter to Test Application Compatibility on Windows 11, and how to Bypass unsupported CPU and Processor by upgrading to Windows 11 via Windows Update.

Manually uninstall VMware Workstation Pro 17.x. 

You can also do this via the Control Panel. Here I am using the Windows Settings to remove VMware Workstation.

Click on Modify

On the setup wizard, click Next

Select Remove

Both are selected by default and I am fine with this. Click Next.

Finally, click on Remove

Hit the finish button to complete this step.

You are required to restart the device for the changes to take effect.

Download VMware Workstation

Navigate to the VMware Workstation Download Center. Based on your requirements, click Go to Downloads for VMware Workstation 14 for Windows or VMware Workstation 16 for Windows. Please see How to use the Program Compatibility Troubleshooter to Test Application Compatibility on Windows 11.

Note: You will have to uninstall VMware Tools, and then re-install VMware Tools for Workstation 16.x Pro. Do not forget to reboot the virtual machine when prompted.

Select the version you wish to install. In my case, v16

Click Download.

Click on the executable file downloaded to run the setup

For the rest steps, please see this guide on how to install VMware Workstation 17 on Windows. Also, seehow to How to install ESXi on VirtualBox, and how to fix ESXi VMB 411 Halting: Virtualbox Nested VT-X/AMD-V greyed out.

Hit the install button as shown below.

Enter the license key

And that is all. Click finish to complete this step.

You will be required to restart your device as well.

As you can see, access is possible again

I hope you found this article useful on how to “Downgrade VMware Workstation: Fix the Processor does not support xsave on VMware Workstation”. Please feel free to leave a comment below.