How to Fix ‘Physical Memory Insufficient’ Error When Starting a VMware Virtual Machine
This guide explains why VMware may report ‘physical memory insufficient’ when launching a VM and provides a step‑by‑step method to reduce the allocated memory, verify the settings, and successfully start the virtual machine.
When a newly created VMware virtual machine cannot start and shows the error “Physical memory insufficient, cannot use the configured settings to start the virtual machine,” it is usually because the VM’s allocated memory exceeds the host’s physical RAM.
Shut down the virtual machine completely (power off).
Click “Edit virtual machine settings” (see image).
In the settings window, note the current memory size (e.g., 20480 MB).
Change the memory size to the value suggested by the error message, such as 20352 MB, and apply the change.
Power on the virtual machine again.
If the same error reappears, reduce the memory further (e.g., to 16384 MB = 16 GB) and repeat steps 2‑5.
After adjusting, the VM’s device information on the VMware home page will show the reduced memory.
Start the VM; it should now boot normally.
These steps provide a practical solution for users encountering memory‑related launch failures in VMware.
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