Allow Application to Run Under Virtual Machine (Themida)

Navigate to the registry entry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE→SYSTEM→CurrentControlSet→Control→Class→{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}→0000 and erase the contents of DriverDesc.

Edit the virtual machine configuration (*.vmx) and add or amend the following:

monitor_control.restrict_backdoor = "true"
isolation. tools.getPtrLocation.disable = "TRUE"
isolation. tools.setPtrLocation.disable = "TRUE"
isolation. tools.setVersion.disable = "TRUE"
isolation. tools.getVersion.disable = "TRUE"
monitor_control.disable_directexec = "TRUE"

Change Boot Order

Shockingly, for an enterprise-grade software, there is no easy option to change the boot order via the virtual machine settings. The general recommendation is to boot the virtual machine and "quickly" press F2 in order to access the VM BIOS and then change the boot order - however, that may not work if the VM boots too fast.

One way around this issue is to edit the VM ".vmx" settings file directly and configure the boot order manually:

bios.bootOrder = "cdrom,floppy,hdd"

and then reload the virtual machine in VMWare workstation for the settings to take effect.