Recently, I ran into an issue where servers running Windows 2012 Server R2 hardware version 10 would fail on reboot in our virtual infrastructure. There is a workaround to fix this issue without having to rollback to hardware version 9 if you are not in a position to upgrade to VMware ESXi 5.5 Update 3 or VMware ESXi 6.0 for that matter.
To work around this issue, you can do two things:
Add monitor_control.enable_softResetClearTSC = TRUE to the VM configuration parameters which applies the setting to the VM individually.
or
Add echo ‘monitor_control.enable_softResetClearTSC = “TRUE”‘ >> /etc/vmware/config to the host, which will apply this fix to all VMs running on the host.
IMPORTANT: You should NOT apply this at the host level if you are using Solaris VMs as there could be unexpected results such as; Solaris VMs hanging.
I will walk through the steps below to apply the setting at a VM level.
- Log into vSphere Client
- Right-click the virtual machine and click Edit Settings to open the Virtual Machine Edit Settings window.
- Click VM Options. Select General, then Configuration Parameters.
4. Click Add Row.
5. Add monitor_control.enable_softResetClearTSC = TRUE
