. Prior to November 2025, installing monthly security updates caused no issues. Beginning with the November 2025 security rollup, however, the VM fails to boot after applying the update. Instead of reaching the normal boot animation, the system drops to a fail screen and go to recovery screen
I never had any problems with Vista nor Server 2008 SP2 until the end (apart from the SMP Paravirtualization* issue), but maybe it's because I'm on an old version (5.2.45)? *) The VM does not boot with more than one CPU configured if Paravirtualization is on Default or Hyper-V.
Running Windows Server 2008 SP2 virtual machines (both 32 and 64 bit using MBR / BIOS boot) under VMware Workstation 15.5.2 on my main system with a CPU from more than 10 years ago. No issues installing either the December 2025 (KB5071504) or January 2026 (KB5073697) rollups and then booting and running the VMs as far as I can see. No apparent issues either with my Windows 7 x64 and Windows Server 2008 R2 VMs (MBR / BIOS boot) after patching to December 2025 / January 2026 level.
Could you please tell me what processor your PC uses? I'm starting to suspect this issue might be related to the processor model. I'm using an AMD Ryzen 7 5800x processor.
As I said I am using a CPU from more than 10 years ago, the Intel Core i7 6900K (8 cores / 16 threads) together with a X99 motherboard.