UEFI was introduced with Windows 8 as a replacement to the BIOS system. In order to benefit from the new UEFI features, here I’ll show you how to install Windows 8 with UEFI in VMware Workstation.

Requirements:

• UEFI requires 64-bit versions of Windows operating systems, so you need to prepare a Windows 8 64-bit ISO image.
• VMware Workstation 8, 9 or 10.

Install Windows 8 with UEFI in VMware Workstation

1. Start VMware Workstation. Choose File > New > Virtual Machine to begin creating a new virtual machine.
2. Follow the step-by-step wizard to configure your virtual machine.
3. Before starting your virtual machine, open the .VMX file of your virtual machine in Notepad and add the following line to it:
   firmware="efi"

   

4. Save the .VMX file. Now start your virtual machine and boot it from Windows 8 64-bit ISO image.
5. Follow the on-screen instructions to install Windows 8.

After Windows 8 installation is complete, you’ll find the virtual hard drive is partitioned with GPT instead of MBR partition table. You’re also unable to boot a UEFI-based virtual machine from a 32-bit Windows 8 ISO image.

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