VMware vCenter Server detected 8005MB of memory. 8176MB of memory is required for the selected deployment type

Problem:

I just tried to install VMware vCenter 6 Update 1 on a lab server, however my lab server barely failed the minimum requirements for RAM. VMware vCenter Server detected 8005MB of memory. 8176MB of memory is required for the selected deployment type

Workaround

Credit to Novakin for commenting below with this method.

You can get the installer to skip all hardware checks using the argument SKIP_HARDWARE_CHECKS=1

For example;

D:\vCenter-Server\VMware-vCenter-Server.exe SKIP_HARDWARE_CHECKS=1

Workaround – Alternative Method

As this was a non production server I did not want to add more RAM just because I was 171Mb short. So instead I went about modifying the the hardware requirements using a MSI transform file.

This is what I did;

Mounted the VMware-VIMSetup ISO image
Opened the the vCenter-Server\VMware-vCenter-Server.msi in the Microsoft MSI database editing tool Orca
Under the Transform menu selected “New Transform”
Under the “HardwareRequirements” table I changed the memory value for the rows embedded and management from 8176 to 8000

Under the Transform menu selected “Generate transform” and saved the MST file
Opened a command prompt and ran the vCenter-Server\VMware-vCenter-Server.exe installer along with my transform file.

Notes

I have not noticed any adverse effects, I performed this change on a non production lab server I would not recommend this is used for a production server.

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