Run Windows 11 in VirtualBox? Nope!
The curse of Windows 11's system requirements has struck, and this time the victims are users of VirtualBox. Anyone hoping to run the latest version of Microsoft’s operating system in Oracle’s virtualization software is out of luck.
It comes after Microsoft tightened up the requirements for running Windows 11 in virtualized environment. The recent change in policy means that virtual machines are subject to the same hardware requirements as physical computers -- including the need for TPM 2.0.
See also:
- AMD issues warning about CPU vulnerability and releases a chipset patch
- New malware uses Windows Subsystem for Linux as an attack vector
- Microsoft even requires TPM 2.0 for Windows 11 virtual machines
All virtualization software is being treated the same by Microsoft; Oracle has not been singled out. But while the likes of Parallels and VMWare Workstation either support both Secure Boot and TPM passthrough or create virtual versions, the same is not true of VirtualBox.
Microsoft did not make an announcement about individual virtualization tools but when Lawrence Abrams from Bleeping Computer) found that he was unable to install the latest insider build of Windows 11 in a virtual machine, he took to Twitter to ask Microsoft's Brandon LeBlanc what was going on:
At the moment, VirtualBox does no support TPM passthrough, but it is something that the development team is working on. A note in VirtualBox's changeset indicates that the team wants to "start implementing a driver for passing through a host TPM".
There is no word on quite when this will be complete, but it’s something that can’t come soon enough for VirtualBox users.