VM: guest-8.virtual-hardware

Information

The guest OS must ensure that virtual machine hardware is version 19 or newer where supported. Virtual hardware 19 is compatible with ESXi 7.0 Update 2 and later. Newer versions of virtual hardware enable new features and better performance. Consider upgrading to VM Hardware 21 if you are fully updated to vSphere 8. Other VMware guidance urges caution when upgrading; we urge testing of the process. Snapshots capture the virtual hardware version, making testing and rollback easy. Consider all locations that a virtual machine might run, or need to be restored to. Changes to the configuration of VMware-supplied virtual appliances are not supported and may cause service disruptions. This entry is intentionally categorized as "in-guest" due to the driver and other updates that will occur when a VM is upgraded, despite the impact being minimal.

Solution

Set-VM -Name $VM -HardwareVersion vmx-21

See Also

https://github.com/vmware/vcf-security-and-compliance-guidelines/raw/refs/heads/main/security-configuration-hardening-guide/vsphere/8.0/