Virtual Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard

Question

I have a Virtual Machine that is currently configured with Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard and 8 cores are being allocated to the machine through Vsphere. (8 virtual sockets and 1 core per socket). I know the OS only supports 4 cores, so does this mean the other 4 cores are being unused by the OS?

Answer 1

Windows 2008 R2 Standard can use a maximum of 4 CPUs (sockets), each socketed CPU can have multiple cores, and it can use them (up to a maximum of 256 cores total).

References:

• Windows Server - Sockets, Logical Processors, Symmetric Multi Threading for a full list.
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Server_2008_R2#Editions

VMWare's assigned CPUs count as actual CPUs (sockets), so Windows 2008 R2 Standard can't/won't use the additional 4 CPUs.

If your version of VMware supports it, assign 4 CPUs with 2 cores each instead, and Windows will see/use 8 logical CPUs.

From VMware:

VMware multicore virtual CPU support lets you control the number of cores per virtual socket in a virtual machine. This capability lets operating systems with socket restrictions use more of the host CPU's cores, which increases overall performance.

More info from VMware: Virtual CPU Configuration