An example method of saving and restoring a state of one or more registers for a guest includes detecting exit of a virtual machine mode of a guest running on a virtual machine. A set of registers is accessible by the guest and includes a first subset of registers and a second subset of registers. The method also includes identifying the first subset of registers. The first subset of registers includes one or more registers to be overwritten by the guest upon re-entry of the virtual machine mode. The second subset of registers is mutually exclusive from the first subset of registers. The method further includes after detecting exit of the virtual machine mode of the guest, detecting re-entry of the virtual machine mode of the guest. The method also includes restoring a saved state of the second subset of registers for the guest.