How to Enable TPM 2.0 Support in VMware Workstation Player for Free

It can be quite difficult to upgrade your main computer to Windows 11, only to revert to Windows 10. The best way to know if you will like Windows 11 is to try it first-hand, in a virtual machine. We show you ways to download the ISO, how to bypass TPM restrictions, etc.

Last week, I wanted to test the latest build that was released to the Windows Insider program, to test and see if there were any fixes for some issues. But I had trouble signing up for the Preview Program, because the guest OS failed the requirements check, as my virtual machine does not have TPM.

I had faced a similar problem before the stable version of Windows 11 was released and I used the free trial version of VMware Workstation Pro to avoid the problem as it had an option to enable TPM 2.0 support. The free version of the software does not have it. There is a way to solve this problem.

Note: Do not try this with an existing virtual machine, as it could damage it. I would also recommend backing up your data before deleting the current virtual machine, to make room for a new one.

A Pío Posted by Michael Roy, a VMWare Product Manager, confirmed that free VMWare workstation users can enable TPM, with a simple tweak. The option works with VMWare Workstation Player 16.2 and higher, which you can download from the official website.

How to Enable TPM 2.0 Support in VMware Workstation Player for Free

1. Create a new guest OS in VMware Workstation Player. Don’t install Windows 11 yet.

2. Exit the program, navigate to the folder that has the configuration of your virtual machine and look for the .VMX file. Open it with a text editor like Notepad and add the following line to it.

managedvm.autoAddVTPM = «software»

Save the document and close the text editor. This flag enables TMP 2.0 in VMware Workstation Player, without fully encrypting the VM. According to the tweet, the virtual machine is partially encrypted without a password, which should offer better performance than a full encrypted copy of the virtual machine.

3. Launch the application and install Windows 11 normally. You can also use Windows Insider Preview ISOs.

If you shut down the operating system and run VMware Workstation Player again, you will see a lock icon next to the operating system indicating that it is encrypted. Access the virtual machine settings and it will show TPM as an option, although you cannot edit it with the free version of the application. If you want further confirmation that TPM is working properly, install and run the PC Health Check application on your VM, and it should no longer be saying that your computer is not TPM 2.0 compliant.

How to disable side channel mitigations in VMware Player

On a side note, VMware Player recently started displaying a warning on my computer. He said that maybe there is some performance degradation with side channel mitigations enabled. (Reference: Support page)

I’m not really sure if it has something to do with the trial version of the Pro variant that I had been using, so I ignored it and tried using the VM, but it was really slow and simple actions like opening files took a long time. time to complete. It turns out that the message about side channel mitigation appears when Hyper-V is enabled on the host, Windows. The support article mentions an option that you can toggle, but it appears to be exclusive to the Workstation Pro version. The option can be found here: Edit Virtual Machine Settings> Options> Advanced> Settings.

A solution for this problem was available in the company community. forums. If you are using the free version of VMWare Workstation Player, you can edit your VMX file to add the following line to it.

ulm.disableMitigations = «TRUE»

Setting that option to true fixed the lags I was having in the Windows 11 virtual machine, so give it a try to see if it helps.

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