VMware, VirtualBox alternative NanaBox finally supports TPM 2.0 for Windows 11 guests

When it comes to virtualization software, VMware and VirtualBox remain very popular and recently, the former's Workstation Pro version fixed a high CPU NAT bug, which was a bonus on top of it going free.

There is a much lesser-known alternative called NanaBox which was released in 2022, and the utility has finally received TPM 2.0 support. In contrast, VirtualBox and VMware started having solutions in 2021 itself, right after the release of Windows 11. To be fair though, NanaBox was only released in July of 2022 but it did still take quite a lot of time for TPM to go from the known issues to the list of new features.

Speaking of known issues, there are still plenty of them that remain. The full changelog for the latest version of NanaBox, 1.2 Update 2 (1.2.797.0), is given below:

This update introduces the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 support for virtual machines in Windows Server 2022 or later Host OS. (Tested under Windows 11 Version 24H2.).

Known issues

• Due to Host Compute System API and Host Compute Network API limitations, there are some limitations from them also applied to NanaBox:
  • NanaBox only supports create UEFI Class 3 or UEFI without CSM or Hyper-V Gen 2 virtual machines.
  • NanaBox needs elevated privilege via UAC.
  • The automatic switch between Enhanced Session Mode and Basic Session Mode won't be implemented.
  • You shouldn't put your virtual machine configuration file at the root of the drive, or you will meet the access denied error.
• Due to the Microsoft Store Licensing API implementation, you will find NanaBox will try to access the Internet beginning with NanaBox 1.2 because NanaBox needs to use that to check the Sponsor Edition addon licensing status.
• For optimizing the user experience, NanaBox will only check the Sponsor Edition addon licensing status at the first time your launch NanaBox. You can click the sponsor button if you want to refresh the status after you have purchased or redeemed the Sponsor Edition addon.

Release Notes

• Introduce the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 support for virtual machines in Windows Server 2022 or later Host OS. (Tested under Windows 11 Version 24H2.)
• Backport the documentation changes from M2Team/NanaZip#435. (Thanks to sirredbeard.)

If you wish to try the application, you can download it from here on its official GitHub repo.