Experimental vTPM feature and Vimalin for Windows

[wila]

As of VMware Workstation 16.2, a new feature is available for supporting Windows 11 without having to encrypt the VM.
It is called the Experimental vTPM feature (I wrote a more indepth article about it here)

Sadly this feature is not compatible with Vimalin.
If you added this to a VM then you can no longer make backups of that specific VM with Vimalin while the VM is running.
You can still make backups of that virtual machine with the VM shut down.

The reason for this is that the VMware automation programming interface that Vimalin uses thinks the VM is encrypted, but there is no password.
As such the automation interface cannot make or remove any snapshots while the VM is active.
I have contacted VMware about this issue.
Last night they informed me that "it currently works as designed" and that we will have to wait for this to be resolved at their end.

[DTilton]

Wila, Thanks for your descriptions about the Experimental vTPM feature, but I am hoping you can provide further clarification.  Vimalin has been a great help to me, but now I have to deal with Windows 11.

I have VMware Workstation 17.0.2, where I am guessing the experimental vTPM feature is now standard.  I am trying to update some Windows 10 virtual machines to Windows 11, and need to add the TPM device to accomplish the upgrade. When converting the VM I see two options for encryption. I selected the "only files needed" option and was able to upgrade a test VM, but lost the ability to do backups with Vimalin except when the VM is shutdown. Is there any known combination of options that would allow me to update to Windows 11 and still be able to backup a running Windows 11 virtual machine?

[wila]

Hi,

Thanks for the question.
Sadly I'm not aware of a fix for this for Workstation 17. VMware's automation functionality once you encrypt the VM does not work with the VM running. As a result there is no way for Vimalin to take a snapshot for encrypted VM's no matter the type of encryption used.

I'm hoping this issue is resolved with Workstation 18.
--
Wil