You download the Windows 10 upgrade app, or you click on that little Windows 10 upgrade icon lurking in your system tray. Then you wait for the verdict. Suspenseful lull. Only to have your heart broken when this nasty warning comes up:
Unfortunately, this PC is unable to run Windows 10.
We're sorry to let you know that this PC can't upgrade to Windows 10 because one or more things are incompatible. See right for details.
Compatiblity issue:
VMware SVGA 3D
The display manufacturer hasn't made your display compatible with Windows 10. Check with the manufacturer for support.
View report.
Check out new PCs
No thanks, maybe later
Yeah right, sure you're sorry. A subtle ploy to help us keep Hyper-V in mind, eh? ;-)
Of course this upgrade will work. TinkerTry readers, don't let this dumb message stop you. At first, you might think temporarily removing VMware Tools just for the upgrade would help, so you'd then have a generic Microsoft VGA driver. Nope, doesn't help, not without further tweaks anyway, explained here. But that's OK, there's an even easier way, especially if you already have the windows.iso installer media. Just use the following fix that I tested out when upgrading an ESXi 6.0 Update 1 VM from Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit to Windows 10 Pro 64 bit today, thought you might like it.
Please drop your comments below this article, to let us know if this workaround gets your upgrade started.
launch the tool, select "Create installation media for another PC"
[vSphere 6.0 / ESXi 6.0 users only] use Datastore Browser to upload this ISO to a datastore
VMware Workstation/ESXi users can now connect this ISO to your VM
run setup.exe from this new driver letter that appears in your VM
the rest is just a regular Windows 10 / Windows 2016 upgrade from here forward
when the install is done, don't forget to dismount the ISO from your VM, it's no longer needed
once you are convinced the upgrade went well, you can delete the snapshot, and/or run Windows 10 Disk Cleanup, Clean up system files to reclaim about 10GB of storage (the Windows un-install/rollback directory)
These systems still work great for many even 9+ years later, mine included, even with (unsupported) vSphere 8 and Windows 11 Version 21H2. But unless you added the optional TPM module, it may be the end of the line as far as repurposing them for running the latest Windows 11 Version 24H2 and beyond.
After 6 successful years testing then shipping well over 1,000 Xeon D Bundles, Wiredzone had to stop SuperServer bundles in mid-2021 due to cost, supply, and logistics challenges. Bare bones system sales continued for years longer.
What's next in 2025? I don't yet have my answer for my home lab, especially now that VCF certification is required to keep non-production home lab licenses going, even as a vExpert and VMUG Advantage EVALExperience customer.
As for a SuperServer follow-on, the Xeon D-1700/2700 (Ice Lake D) was a minor refresh for 2023, with Xeon D-1800/2800 (Granite Rapids D) refresh slightly better in 2024, and hopefully Xeon 6 (Granite Rapids-D) much better in 2025 featuring PCIe Gen5, MCRDIMMs, and 100GbE networking, wow! Feb. 27 2025 update update looks promising, but pricey. Infortunately, it's become clear to me that Supermicro is less focuses on the mini-tower form factor these days.
As for the CPU industry, it's unfortunate that Pat Gelsinger was apparently ousted from Intel's helm in these challenging times, but I'm also grateful to have had the honor of working at VMware when he was the CIO there. I'll leave it at that, given the whole Broadcom thing.
These systems still work great for many even 9+ years later, mine included, even with (unsupported) vSphere 8 and Windows 11 Version 21H2. But unless you added the optional TPM module, it may be the end of the line as far as repurposing them for running the latest Windows 11 Version 24H2 and beyond.