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Robert Koritnik
Asked: 2009-08-11 12:53:51 +0800 CST

Can an x86 host run x64 guests?

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Is it possible to run x64 guests on x86 host in VMWare Workstation 6.5? It would probably make my life easier due to notebook device drivers...

Edit
Just to make it clear. I also added my CPU to tags. Based on your answers I should be able to run in this configuration because I do have support for VT in BIOS.

vmware-workstation

6 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Yes, VMWare Workstation can run 64-bit guests on a 32-bit hosts...however it is required that your hardware can support 64-bit OS's (it doesn't have to run a 64-bit OS, it just needs to support it).

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  2. It depends on your hypervisor. As Chopper and davr have pointed out, VMware Workstation 6.5 supports 64-bit VMs on a 32-bit host with VT extensions enabled in the BIOS.

    Some older versions of VMware did not support this.

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  3. Contrary to other answers I'm certain that you can do this, so long as your processor and BIOS support hardware virtualisation anyway. It's not a great way of doing it and I wouldn't suggest giving the guest too much memory either, but yes, yes it will work.

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  4. From personal experience, Sun's VBox will run a 64 bit O/S on a Win XP SP3 32-bit system, provided your CPU supports, and BIOS has VT-x turned on.

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  5. If you can't move to Windows 64 bits because of the lack of drivers for your laptop, well I'm going to surprise you but ... you could install a 64 bit Linux distrib and it's 99% likely to support your machine out of the box. Then you can run Windows in the VMs, any version.

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  6. yes, however only if you are using a fully virtualized machine. with a fully virtualized machine the processor is software and does not rely on the physical hardware. paravirtualization uses the main(real) processor and therefore can not run at 64bit if the host is 32bit.

    I have used both scenarios with XEN

    Stuart

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