Windows Server freezes during 2003 to 2008 upgrade on VMware


I had an issue where a Windows 2003 to 2008 upgrade (non-R2 since R2 does not provide an upgrade path from 2003) kept freezing at the graphical startup screen (black background with green scrolling status bar).  I was sure that it was an issue with choosing the OS type, but I tried both 2008 32-bit and 64-bit, and no dice.  Various forum posts on the VMware Communities didn't help, but the one thread below gave me an idea.  I changed the number of vCPU to 1 and then restarted (note the OS selector was set back to 2003 32-bit).  This worked, and got me back into the second part of the 2008 upgrade!

http://communities.vmware.com/message/922147

The other thing which may have helped to resolve the "STOP:0x0000008E." BSoD was to manually edit the .vmx file with the following setting:

piix4pm.smooth_acpi_timer = TRUE


http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1897287

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