Why does VMWare guests lose network access constantly on Windows 7 64 bit?

I have a problem with VMWare

PROBLEM

My VMWare guests lose network access constantly on Windows 7 64 bit. This happens sometimes within an hour and sometimes longer. I haven’t really tracked that well.

The first step to troubleshooting is identifying the problem…then next is gathering data, so lets analyze what I have.

Setup

Operating System: Windows 7 64 bit
VMWare version: Workstation 6.5.3

Processor: Core 2 Quad
Memory: 8 GB

Physical cards
1 GB Ethernet
1 Wireless

VMNet0 – Bridged
VMNet1 – Host only
VMNet8 – NAT

Do I need three networks? Could that be problematic? According to this article it could be on Vista 64 bit, and that may hold true for Windows 7 64 bit.
http://communities.vmware.com/message/1137694;jsessionid=407F88A83287FEE2B3B60EC22A592ACB

Ok, so I really only need VMNet0 as I always plan to bridge in this environment. In other environments I might not though. I also have never remove these, but I am going to try it.

ACTIONS:
1. Deleted VMNet1
2. Deleted VMNet8
Note: I deleted those using the Virtual Network Editor | Host Virtual Adapters tab.

Settings
So I started looking at settings to see if there is a setting that doesn’t look right.

Found this setting: Automatic bridging

My problem may be the Automatic bridging settings, since mine is disabled and VMNet0 was configured to use the wireless adapter. I am only using the Ethernet adapter but even though it is a desktop, my PC came with a wireless card, which I am not going to use.

ACTIONS:
1. On the Virtual Network Editor | Automatic Bridging tab, I unchecked the automatic bridging option to disable it.
2. On the Virtual Network Editor | Host Virtual Network Mapping, changed VMNet0 to to be statically mapped to my physical wired Ethernet controller.
3. In windows, I went to my network settings and disabled my wireless network card, since I am not going to use it.

So here goes the test…lets see if my VMWare guest operatings system lose their networking capability.

UDPATE 7:48 AM 12/9/2009

Well, my network wasn’t working last night…so I would have to say the steps above didn’t NOT resolve the issue. Time to continue troubleshooting.

I now have configured the vmnat.exe and vmentdhcp.exe to be allowed in the firewall always.

UDPATE 7:48 AM 1/18/2010
So the three networks somehow came back. I removed them again and this time they stayed gone. This was about a month ago and my virtual hosts’ haven’t lost network access since.

17 Comments

  1. [...] PDRTJS_settings_635139_post_1470 = { "id" : "635139", "unique_id" : "wp-post-1470", "title" : "Ahhh...the+dying+vmware+network+is+back...", "item_id" : "_post_1470", "permalink" : "http%3A%2F%2Frhyous.com%2F2010%2F03%2F03%2Fahhh-the-dying-vmware-network-is-back%2F" } Ok, so I posted this a while ago: Why does VMWare guests lose network access constantly on Windows 7 64 bit? [...]

  2. [...] PDRTJS_settings_635139_post_1470 = { "id" : "635139", "unique_id" : "wp-post-1470", "title" : "Ahhh...the+dying+vmware+network+is+back...", "item_id" : "_post_1470", "permalink" : "http%3A%2F%2Frhyous.com%2F2010%2F03%2F03%2Fahhh-the-dying-vmware-network-is-back%2F" } Ok, so I posted this a while ago: Why does VMWare guests lose network access constantly on Windows 7 64 bit? [...]

  3. [...] PDRTJS_settings_635139_post_1470 = { "id" : "635139", "unique_id" : "wp-post-1470", "title" : "Ahhh...the+dying+vmware+network+is+back...", "item_id" : "_post_1470", "permalink" : "http%3A%2F%2Frhyous.com%2F2010%2F03%2F03%2Fahhh-the-dying-vmware-network-is-back%2F" } Ok, so I posted this a while ago: Why does VMWare guests lose network access constantly on Windows 7 64 bit? [...]

  4. [...] PDRTJS_settings_635139_post_1470 = { "id" : "635139", "unique_id" : "wp-post-1470", "title" : "Ahhh...the+dying+vmware+network+is+back...", "item_id" : "_post_1470", "permalink" : "http%3A%2F%2Frhyous.com%2F2010%2F03%2F03%2Fahhh-the-dying-vmware-network-is-back%2F" } Ok, so I posted this a while ago: Why does VMWare guests lose network access constantly on Windows 7 64 bit? [...]

  5. [...] PDRTJS_settings_635139_post_1470 = { "id" : "635139", "unique_id" : "wp-post-1470", "title" : "Ahhh...the+dying+vmware+network+is+back...", "item_id" : "_post_1470", "permalink" : "http%3A%2F%2Frhyous.com%2F2010%2F03%2F03%2Fahhh-the-dying-vmware-network-is-back%2F" } Ok, so I posted this a while ago: Why does VMWare guests lose network access constantly on Windows 7 64 bit? [...]

  6. [...] PDRTJS_settings_635139_post_1470 = { "id" : "635139", "unique_id" : "wp-post-1470", "title" : "Ahhh...the+dying+vmware+network+is+back...", "item_id" : "_post_1470", "permalink" : "http%3A%2F%2Frhyous.com%2F2010%2F03%2F03%2Fahhh-the-dying-vmware-network-is-back%2F" } Ok, so I posted this a while ago: Why does VMWare guests lose network access constantly on Windows 7 64 bit? [...]

  7. [...] PDRTJS_settings_635139_post_1470 = { "id" : "635139", "unique_id" : "wp-post-1470", "title" : "Ahhh...the+dying+vmware+network+is+back...", "item_id" : "_post_1470", "permalink" : "http%3A%2F%2Frhyous.com%2F2010%2F03%2F03%2Fahhh-the-dying-vmware-network-is-back%2F" } Ok, so I posted this a while ago: Why does VMWare guests lose network access constantly on Windows 7 64 bit? [...]

  8. [...] PDRTJS_settings_635139_post_1470 = { "id" : "635139", "unique_id" : "wp-post-1470", "title" : "Ahhh...the+dying+vmware+network+is+back...", "item_id" : "_post_1470", "permalink" : "http%3A%2F%2Frhyous.com%2F2010%2F03%2F03%2Fahhh-the-dying-vmware-network-is-back%2F" } Ok, so I posted this a while ago: Why does VMWare guests lose network access constantly on Windows 7 64 bit? [...]

  9. [...] PDRTJS_settings_635139_post_1470 = { "id" : "635139", "unique_id" : "wp-post-1470", "title" : "Ahhh...the+dying+vmware+network+is+back...", "item_id" : "_post_1470", "permalink" : "http%3A%2F%2Frhyous.com%2F2010%2F03%2F03%2Fahhh-the-dying-vmware-network-is-back%2F" } Ok, so I posted this a while ago: Why does VMWare guests lose network access constantly on Windows 7 64 bit? [...]

  10. [...] PDRTJS_settings_635139_post_1470 = { "id" : "635139", "unique_id" : "wp-post-1470", "title" : "Ahhh...the+dying+vmware+network+is+back...", "item_id" : "_post_1470", "permalink" : "http%3A%2F%2Frhyous.com%2F2010%2F03%2F03%2Fahhh-the-dying-vmware-network-is-back%2F" } Ok, so I posted this a while ago: Why does VMWare guests lose network access constantly on Windows 7 64 bit? [...]

  11. [...] PDRTJS_settings_635139_post_1470 = { "id" : "635139", "unique_id" : "wp-post-1470", "title" : "Ahhh...the+dying+vmware+network+is+back...", "item_id" : "_post_1470", "permalink" : "http%3A%2F%2Frhyous.com%2F2010%2F03%2F03%2Fahhh-the-dying-vmware-network-is-back%2F" } Ok, so I posted this a while ago: Why does VMWare guests lose network access constantly on Windows 7 64 bit? [...]

  12. [...] PDRTJS_settings_635139_post_1470 = { "id" : "635139", "unique_id" : "wp-post-1470", "title" : "Ahhh...the+dying+vmware+network+is+back...", "item_id" : "_post_1470", "permalink" : "http%3A%2F%2Frhyous.com%2F2010%2F03%2F03%2Fahhh-the-dying-vmware-network-is-back%2F" } Ok, so I posted this a while ago: Why does VMWare guests lose network access constantly on Windows 7 64 bit? [...]

  13. [...] PDRTJS_settings_635139_post_1470 = { "id" : "635139", "unique_id" : "wp-post-1470", "title" : "Ahhh...the+dying+vmware+network+is+back...", "item_id" : "_post_1470", "permalink" : "http%3A%2F%2Frhyous.com%2F2010%2F03%2F03%2Fahhh-the-dying-vmware-network-is-back%2F" } Ok, so I posted this a while ago: Why does VMWare guests lose network access constantly on Windows 7 64 bit? [...]

  14. [...] PDRTJS_settings_635139_post_1470 = { "id" : "635139", "unique_id" : "wp-post-1470", "title" : "Ahhh...the+dying+vmware+network+is+back...", "item_id" : "_post_1470", "permalink" : "http%3A%2F%2Frhyous.com%2F2010%2F03%2F03%2Fahhh-the-dying-vmware-network-is-back%2F" } Ok, so I posted this a while ago: Why does VMWare guests lose network access constantly on Windows 7 64 bit? [...]

  15. [...] PDRTJS_settings_635139_post_1470 = { "id" : "635139", "unique_id" : "wp-post-1470", "title" : "Ahhh...the+dying+vmware+network+is+back...", "item_id" : "_post_1470", "permalink" : "http%3A%2F%2Frhyous.com%2F2010%2F03%2F03%2Fahhh-the-dying-vmware-network-is-back%2F" } Ok, so I posted this a while ago: Why does VMWare guests lose network access constantly on Windows 7 64 bit? [...]

  16. [...] PDRTJS_settings_635139_post_1470 = { "id" : "635139", "unique_id" : "wp-post-1470", "title" : "Ahhh...the+dying+vmware+network+is+back...", "item_id" : "_post_1470", "permalink" : "http%3A%2F%2Frhyous.com%2F2010%2F03%2F03%2Fahhh-the-dying-vmware-network-is-back%2F" } Ok, so I posted this a while ago: Why does VMWare guests lose network access constantly on Windows 7 64 bit? [...]

  17. [...] PDRTJS_settings_635139_post_1470 = { "id" : "635139", "unique_id" : "wp-post-1470", "title" : "Ahhh...the+dying+vmware+network+is+back...", "item_id" : "_post_1470", "permalink" : "http%3A%2F%2Frhyous.com%2F2010%2F03%2F03%2Fahhh-the-dying-vmware-network-is-back%2F" } Ok, so I posted this a while ago: Why does VMWare guests lose network access constantly on Windows 7 64 bit? [...]

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