Not Enough Physical Memory – VMware Workstation

Running VMware Workstation on Windows 8 or above can give this error:

Not enough physical memory is available to power on this virtual machine with its configured settings.

To fix this problem, power off other virtual machines, decrease the memory size of this virtual machine to 220 MB, increase the amount of physical memory for all virtual machines to 2256 MB, or adjust the additional memory settings to allow more virtual machine memory to be swapped.

It is possible that native applications and/or services have locked down memory which could be preventing the virtual machine from launching. Shutting down unnecessary applications or services may free enough memory to launch this virtual machine.

If you were able to power on this virtual machine on this host computer in the past, try rebooting the host computer. Rebooting may allow you to use slightly more host memory to run virtual machines.

To fix this error, try the following:

• Run VMware Workstation as an Administrator (Right click, Run as Administrator)
• Uninstall Windows Update Fix KB2995388
• Edit Config.ini in the C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware folder to add this line:
  vmmon.disableHostParameters = “TRUE”
  Then reboot the computer
• Edit Config.ini to add this line:
  prefvmx.minVmMemPct = “25”
  Then reboot

In most instances, the first fix will get rid of the Not enough physical memory error.