Hypervisors

General information

Working on a virtual environment, we suggest to choose one of the most common Hypervisors available, which are currently the following:

VMware
- VMware Workstation Player (Windows and Linux)
- VMware Fusion (Non-Pro Version) (Mac OS)
Oracle
- Oracle VirtualBox (Windows, Linux and Mac OS)

Each of those hypervisors support the import of virtual machines (VMs) based on the file formats .ova and .ovf.

Note

Depending on how a VM is being configured via the underlying hypervisor, the export/import between different hypervisors could be compatible. However, in most cases, not without any manual preparatory steps!

VM images

We at OST are providing different pre-prepared VM images for different purposes.

Troubleshooting

BIOS settings

To operate with a type 2 hypervisor, a computer's CPU (processor) must support hardware virtualization in the first place, which is the case for most of modern CPUs. That said, it may be required to enable the according option within the computer's BIOS, mostly within the „Advanced BIOS Features“ section or similiar. The according option to enable is typically called one of the following:

Intel VT-x
AMD VT
Virtualization
VT
Vanderpool Technology
Virtualization Technology
VMX
Virtual Machine Extensions

Incompatibility with Microsoft Hyper-V (VMware Workstation Version < 15.5 only)

In case you are using a physical Windows 10 computer and VMware Workstation Player version < 15.5 as a hypervisor, in some circumstances this combination can make you run into compatibility issues, caused by Microsoft's native virtualization platform Hyper-V. In such case, the following similiar error message will occur when trying to start the VM:

Error message

To fix this issue, you could try one of the following solutions:

Check the following option during the installation of VMware Workstation if you are being asked for it (you are only being asked if the conitions are met):

VMware Workstation optional installation step
On your Windows 10 computer navigate to Control Panel → Programs and Features → Turn Windows features on or off → Disable Hyper-V

Execute the following PowerShell command with administrative privileges:

Disable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName VirtualMachinePlatform

Execute the following CMD command with administrative privileges:
```
bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off
```

If your computer meets any of the solutions above, after a system reboot, the error messages should not occur anymore.