Can I enable Windows Sandbox feature in a VMWare Workstation virtual machine?

I'm trying to test the Windows Sandbox feature released for Windows insiders. I have Win10 Pro 1809 build 18309 installed in a virtual machine in VMWare Workstation. So when I go to enable it, I'm getting this message:

Windows Sandbox cannot be installed: The processor does not have required virtualization capabilities.

The post I linked above has a blurb about running the following PowerShell command:

Set-VMProcessor -VMName <VMName> -ExposeVirtualizationExtensions $true

But I'm not really sure what am I supposed to use instead of <VMName>.

Did anyone have any luck enabling it in a VMWare VM?

c00000fd

Posted 2019-01-09T07:55:25.593

Reputation: 339

You're running a VM within a VM. Set-VMProcessor is a Hyper-V cmdlet. You'd have to look at how to enable nested virtualization for VMware.

– Seth – 2019-01-09T10:10:51.150

One could start by installing Windows Hypervisor Platform. The command in question is meant for the host OS, which is running a Hyper-V VM, it isn't applicable to VMWare. – Ramhound – 2019-01-09T12:23:01.003

1Within the VM settings, I assume you have enabled, Virtualize Intel VT-x/EPT or AMD-V/RVI.? – Ramhound – 2019-01-09T12:28:29.907

Answers

Thanks to @Ramhound in the comments I was able to make it work. The trick was to set the virtualization features in VM settings in VMWare:

Then when I enabled it in Windows control panel and rebooted, Windows Sandbox started up (after about a minute of churning.) It looks great, except that it is very slow. Really, really slow to the point that I couldn't do anything in it. Here's a screenshot from the VMWare:

As you see, without anything else running, it almost totally saturated the CPU utilization and available RAM. It may be because I was already running it in a VM. I don't know. I have a pretty beefy CPU in this desktop Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-7940X CPU @ 3.10GHz which otherwise has no issues opening any VM.

I'm also curious who is this feature for? I guess people who don't know about a free Virtual Box.

PS. And yes, I tried to make a real Inception and open another Windows Sandbox from within a Sandbox but it didn't let me. Darn!

c00000fd

Posted 2019-01-09T07:55:25.593

Reputation: 339

You might see better performance with a Hyper-V VM. "Windows Sandbox" is for those running physical machines and want to increase their security posture by running applications within an isolated environment. If you are not running the VM on an SSD, and assigning the VM 8 GB, you might see performance increases if you do. "At least 4GB of RAM (8GB recommended)". It also appears you should provide the VM 4 processors, each with 4 cores, "4 cores with hyperthreading recommended"

– Ramhound – 2019-01-10T03:30:01.557