Update!!!
I went into the system BIOS and there was a setting to allow virtual machines that was disabled. I enabled it and restarted and VMware Player started right up.
I have had the same issue. I had thought it was that my CPU didnāt support virtualization.
I was about to suggest that, as itās something we encountered before.
In short:
When you try to boot into Windows VM and it crashes on start, 99% of the time itās because Virtualization is not activated on BIOS. 
Bravo on getting it done @Gr8_4w4k3n1n9!
Vasileios, I finally got around to taking my Surface Pro 3 to linux. Iāve tried Xubuntu since I thought it was one of the lighter versions. I loaded it on a usb stick and checked the sha256sum was correct. It almost finishes loading and gets hung up trying to fix the partitions. I pulled the usb stick and tried to start it up and all I get is booting into the eufi. I canāt think of anything to do to get past that. It will still boot into a live session however and seems to work fine. I noticed somewhere in the installation process that it was using 256.1GB to load. That may be why it almost gets through the installation and then hangs up. Any suggestions, like maybe an even lighter version of linux? Thanks
PS I did disable the TPM and Secure Boot.
Hey @Mike19!
Iād recommend you give the new Ubuntu LTS a shot. The older installations come with Kernel 5.11, which does not support any of the Surface hardware, hence it appears to be stuck. Kernel 5.12 and onward, a lot of Surface support was added and the process is heck of a lot faster.
Give it a shot with the original version (Gnome), which is much more touch-screen friendly.
Vasileios, sorry I bothered you. Just needed to keep on researching. For anyone else the tutorial for these problems it as: How to use manual partitioning during installation? - Ask Ubuntu
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Vasileios, Success. I have my surface pro 3 running ubuntu and windoz safely tucked inside its little sandbox. Feels really good!!! I could not get the 3D acceleration to work however. That may be because Iām a little short of resources on the surface. Did it work on yours? The reason I ask is that I couldnāt get windoz to show up on my smart TV thru the HDMI cable. I was hoping the VM tools would solve that, or maybe Iām just missing something here.
Thanks
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Hey @Mike19!
Yes, the VMware tools provide 3D acceleration, but itās something youāll need to install inside of your Windows VM. When you downloaded the VMware Tools, they have an ISO file inside the directory structure of the uncompressed file. The process youāll need to do is simple:
- Shutdown your Windows VM
- Go to the VM settings, under CD/DVD tab
- Select the ISO option (instead of the hardware device)
- Browse to the location of the VMware Tools folder and select the Windows.ISO file.
- Boot into your Windows VM and open up the CD/DVD device there and run the setup64.exe (if memory serves me well).
This installation will upgrade all your VM drivers, which will enable hardware acceleration.
If you need better speed, I havenāt personally tested it, you can purchase the Professional Edition, which fully enables DirectX inside your VM. Once I put enough $ aside, Iāll grab it and test it appropriately. Iām still in the process of rebuilding here in the US, as I came in with a very tiny suitcase (I didnāt intend to move here, but my now wife thought otherwise 
)!
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@vasileios same thing happened to me but at least it was only a couple of hundred miles and it was the best decision I ever made. Congratulations on finding love, my friend. I wish everyone could - the world would be so much calmer with everyone finishing their āHoney Doā list. off-topic, I know. Sorry. Cheers
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I hear you there, @BigDaveAZ!
I had to suffer twoā¦ insufferable relationships prior to this one. So, letās say I placed a hefty down-deposit! Iām now 11,000km from where I used to be, but I regret nothing. I absolutely adore this country and Iām glad to have found all of you!
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I finally tried this on the 2011 MBP. After trying VirtualBox. VirtualBox is a great concept butā¦ Slow as molasses. I decided to put VM with Win10 on my desktop instead of Home. Will be wiping the drive and starting over with a configuration for my wife with Win10 and as current as I can find of Mac on Linux Mint DE. Looking for the Mac tutorial now.
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I am working with an old machine that only has 6GB of ram that I installed Linux Mint on. Should I still use 4GB for the VM / Windows? Am I asking for trouble?
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I figured I better just buy more RAM;)
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Rule of thumb re: RAM. ALWAYS install as much as you can afford. Especially when it comes to VM.
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The general rule for VMs is to use half resources of everything. Like half the CPU cores and half the RAM. Unless you have more than 16GB. Windows VM runs great when you give it around 8GB.
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Thank you so much! What a great piece of info!!
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@vasileios Hi there. Iām appreciating this tutorial. Iāve run into an issue about Windows Product Key. Iām creating a VM with VMWare on my desktop and have got as far as installing the Windows 10 iso and beginning the VM creation. VM is now asking for a Windows Product Key.
Iāve previously installed Mint and wiped my computer of Windows 10. I originally had a product key for that so I followed @hisswordās suggestion to run:
āsudo strings /sys/firmware/acpi/tables/MSDM | tail -1ā
But the terminal returns a āno such file messageā.
Could you kindly assist me?
Tami
Try this oneā¦
sudo cat /sys/firmware/acpi/tables/MSDM | tail -c 32 | xargs -0 echo
@vasileios never mindāgot a product key from my grandsonāhe had it from when he built my desktop and installed Windows.