Fixing VMWare Workstation `Device/Credential Guard are not compatible` and `64-bit Guest OS can't run on 32-bit host` errors

Symptoms

  • VMWare Wrokstation Player shows a warning when you try to create a new 64-bit VM on a 64-bit host (Win10 Pro host in my case)
  • VMWare Wrokstation Player just starts the vm, shows black screen and then an error message pops up, saying: VMWare Workstation and Device/Credential Guard are not compatible.

TL;DR;

  • Disable Hyper-V and Windows Sandbox in Windows Features (Control Panel -> Programs -> Turn Windows Features On or Off)
  • Enable processor virtualization in BIOS
  • From elevated CMD (run as administrator):
    bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off
    shutdown /r /t 0
    

Some details of what might be wrong

  • Make sure vitualization is turned on for the processor in BIOS (this step varies by BIOS manufacturer)
  • In Windows’ features check that Hyper-V and Windows Sandbox are not enabled.

My experience

I had Windows Sandbox enabled in the first place. This was causing VMWare Workstation 15.5.2 to show the warning about 64-bit guest on 32-bit host. Even though the host was 64-bit in fact. I then uninstalled Windows Sandbox via Add/Remove Windows Features menu. Then I started getting the more common Device/Credential Guard are not compatible error message.
Running from elevated CMD:

    bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off
    shutdown /r /t 0

Did the final trick.

Principal Bioinformatics Scientist

My main research interests are data visualization and signal processing for mass spectrometry.