I have a Win11 host and Win11 VMs on VMWare Workstation Pro v26.

Semi-randomly (although usually when I'm AFK), a VM will hang being completely unresponsive and the host will be at near 100% CPU utilization. I've discovered that if I start to suspend the VM but don't let it finish and cancel the suspension, it will usually, eventually break out of the hang. It sometimes takes a few attempts, but I haven't had to force-reset for the last few-dozen hangs.

This is super annoying as I use one of the VMs as a regular/primary machine. I'm not just spinning things up for a quick test (usually). My previous iteration of VMWare Workstation (v16) didn't have this problem at all.

Is there anything I can do to stop this?

Thanks.

We are a small-medium sized company. In June/July of 2025 we agreed to a 12 month license agreement with Broadcom after we had moved 70% of our virtual environment off of VMWare. Over the last year we have been moving more and more over, but we are not 100% complete and budgeted for one more 12 month term based on last year plus about 15% more, knowing they would probably go up.

As of now, our licenses will expire on July 31, 2026.

Our vendor started the process to get a quote from Broadcom 4 months ago. VMWare kept demanding that we send over our RVTools Data as their own script we used last year wasn't good enough. We were going to just do the same deal, same number of cores, same 12 month term. We even had to get on a video call to show our VMWare rep our environment. We complied with everything as we have nothing to hide.

We requested a 12 month term quote.

Finally, during the first week of July, less than 30 days out from our license expiration date, we received a 3 year quote. The per year cost increased by 20% over last year. We are not budgeted to pay 345% more than what we budgeted for.

We went back to them and asked them for a 12 month quote like last year, and they took their sweet time and came back and said they could do an 18 month quote at the very minimum. We would then have to fork out 18 months worth of money where we only budgeted for 12 months. It ended up being 85% more than what we had budgeted.

So, then we went back to see if we could reduce hosts and core count while still maintaining room for failure, we requested a new quote from Broadcom. This is actually what they sent to our vendor...

Email quote from Broadcom..

"We size renewals based on the RVTools export. If hardware is being retired before the renewal and you would like the core count reduced, we can apply that adjustment with a brief written attestation stating that the hosts are being permanently decommissioned and their VMware licenses retired.

Please note that this adjustment is only possible if we are outside the 30-day window before your renewal date. Within the final 30 days, we must proceed with the core count as it stands in the RVTools export."

They intentionally dragged their feet within the last 30 days before sending a quote so that once we actually saw how much it was going to cost, they could pull up their fabricated BS rules and deny us getting a somewhat cheaper quote.

I've never worked with a worse company. They are hell bent on destroying VMWare. In hindsight, we should have moved resources into moving 100% off of VMWare before this year. We definitely have it on the plan to complete over the next year (or 18 months).

Thank you for letting me vent and share my company's story.

Hello guys

I am unable to run GNS3 vm apparently because KVM value is set to false, I went to check in bios and Intel Virtualization Technology is enabled

I literally tried everything and even tried to disable Virtualization Based Security but it keeps showing as running

Any solutions ?!!!

We are migrating from one cluster to another, and when picking the storage location, it no longer allows you to choose the datastore cluster. It makes you choose individual datastores. When did this change? Is there a way to get it back?

Is the new VCF Management Services introduced in 9.1 killing your lab environment?

Ive been the in same boat, Broadcom consolidated a lot of services, and introduced new ones, in the new Management Services cluster for VCF and while it brings a lot to the table in terms of scaling and availability, it added a lot to the resource requirements

If you are like me and have this running in a small homelab, this is honestly crippling in terms of getting 9.1 deployed and learning about the new platform changes and improvements, and hardware is expensive enough these days so we can throw that at the issue

Well, I have been through my management services cluster and gutted it and downsized it by ~%30, taking the three base worker nodes from 12vCPU/24GB to 8vCPU/16GB, the catch?

You do have to pick, Identity Broker, or Log Management, otherwise it been running rock solid for me for around a month or so now

I also feel this should go without saying, but under no circumstances should this be implemented on a production environment, this is about as far from supported by Broadcom as you can get

Hopefully this helps some people until Broadcom, hopefully, get around to addressing this issue <3

https://blog.leaha.co.uk/2026/07/21/vcf-9-management-services-lab-downsize/

Is it the new normal that VMware support, administration, and engineering roles are drying up out there in the job market? There's so few these days it is barely noticeable when searching out new positions.

Why on earth would the sales guy and sales engineer (who reached out to me) asking if I wanted to see what's new in 9.1 ask me for a RVTools dump prior to the call?

That tool enumerates your entire stack, down to names of VMs, networks, storage.

Any thoughts on why they would even ask for this?

Hi! I'm working on a research project and need to estimate the energy cost of transferring data between storage and compute nodes.

I'm using VMware VMs with VMXNET3 paravirtualized NICs, so I don't have access to the physical NIC's power draw.

How do people estimate the NIC power term in a virtualized environment? Are there accepted models, papers, or methodologies for this?

Thanks!

Hello everyone,

I'm facing a problem. I inherited a VMware environment without having the chance to meet the previous administrators, so unfortunately there was no knowledge transfer.

I'm very familiar with VMware vCenter/vSphere, and I have a bit understanding of Kubernetes from the CLI. However, I have no experience with Kubernetes running on VMware or with the way Harbor has been deployed in this environment.

The Harbor web certificate will expire on July 29, 2026 (8-Days left), and I'm not sure how to renew it.

Currently, there is a namespace called svc-harbor-domain-c1006 with the following Harbor pods:

• harbor-core
• harbor-database
• harbor-exporter
• harbor-jobservice
• harbor-portal
• harbor-redis
• harbor-registry
• harbor-trivy

The documentation I found online is quite limited, and honestly I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment.

Does anyone know the proper way to renew Harbor's TLS/web certificate for another year in a VMware Kubernetes environment? Any guidance or best practices would be greatly appreciated.

Body: I’ve been working on a project involving Windows Embedded POSReady 7 (64-bit) as a guest OS on VMware Workstation 26H1 Pro, but I’ve hit a wall with the VMware Tools installation.

Even after trying several different versions of VMware Tools (including 11.x and 12.x), the required drivers (especially for SVGA and network adapters) fail to initialize correctly, and they show up with errors in Device Manager.

Has anyone here successfully run POSReady 7 on a recent version of Workstation? I’ve searched for similar issues but haven't found a clear fix for this specific legacy OS. Any tips or advice on a specific driver sequence or configuration would be greatly appreciated.

Hi All, I am using ubuntu 24.04 os and I am trying to setup virtual kali linux through VMWare,
when I am turning on kali, I am facing issue : Could not open /dev/vmmon: No such file or directory.Please make sure that the kernel module `vmmon' is loaded.

I search this issue other places and found that you have to enable the virtualization but when I checked it was already on.
commad I use : egrep -c '(vmx|svm)' /proc/cpuinfo -> 16

Earlier I was using Virtual box in Windows it was working but today I formated my laptop and install ubuntu and then I am not able to launch virtual kali linux.

anyone please guide what I am missing now ?
I though to change VMware with Virtual box but still there was same issue.

Problem seems basic. I've allocated more space than I thought I would need to a VM and shaved off a lot of unused files inside. It's used for a private server as a hobby project. The VM has a disk size of 80GB and I really only need 50GB, maybe a bit less if I shave off some more stuff.

I've read that VMWare has a conversion tool for this purpose. Is that the only way or what would be the simplest way to move everything to a smaller virtual disk? I don't wanna make any other changes to the VM, just have it sit on a 30GB smaller virtual disk.

I know this sub is mostly geared towards the higher tier versions of vmware products, but i'm posting here since it seems relevant enough. I've been working on a tool that lets you do most of the features of coherence mode from competitor Parallels in VMWare Fusion.

I'm seeing how much interest this has, and also wondering what value it would bring to you.

Have been asked to think about what Ansible playbooks could be made for an automation initiative. What are some playbooks that you have made for VMware management?

Running a host on 8.0b (2023 build) and want to jump straight to the latest 8.0U3e.

A few quick questions:

Is the direct upgrade path supported? (8.0b → 8.0U3e)

Free ESXi license - I'm using the free hypervisor version. Does the upgrade path work ? Or Do we need to pay

Is Fresh install only possible way?

Hello,

We are migrating from VMWare to Hyper-V using a product called RiverMeadow. During this conversion, this tool removes VMWare tools for us during the finalizing part (or so we thought). Recently, we had an issue with migrated virtual machines going offline and found out that the Hyper-V Network Adapter was in an error state (Code 43). Upon further investigation, we found the old PnP device for the VMX3 adapter was left behind and upon removal by an automated Windows service, it crashed the Hyper-V Network Adapter.

I'm curious if anyone else has run into this when migrating off VMware? I even checked the popular Remove-VMTools.ps1 script and found that it doesn't even remove the VMX3 adapter, only all the other VMWare related adapters.

We are currently working with Microsoft on this, but they seem just as confused as to how it could affect their adapter. So far, I've gone through 25 engineers at Microsoft since Tuesday and they are looking at escalating to development.

The leftover adapter after migration:

^{Caption                  : vmxnet3 Ethernet Adapter
Description              : vmxnet3 Ethernet Adapter
InstallDate              :
Name                     : vmxnet3 Ethernet Adapter
Status                   : Unknown
Availability             :
ConfigManagerErrorCode   : CM\}PROB_PHANTOM)
^{ConfigManagerUserConfig  : False
CreationClassName        : Win32\}PnPEntity)
^{DeviceID                 : PCI\}VEN_15AD&DEV_07B0&SUBSYS_07B015AD&REV_01\005056FFFFB7243900)
^{ErrorCleared             :
ErrorDescription         :
LastErrorCode            :
PNPDeviceID              : PCI\}VEN_15AD&DEV_07B0&SUBSYS_07B015AD&REV_01\005056FFFFB7243900)
^{PowerManagementCapabilities :
PowerManagementSupported :
StatusInfo               :
SystemCreationClassName  : Win32\}ComputerSystem)
^(SystemName               : \****************)*
^{ClassGuid                : {4d36e972-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}
CompatibleID             : {PCI\}VEN_15AD&DEV_07B0&REV_01,)
^PCI\VEN_15AD&DEV_07B0,)
^PCI\VEN_15AD&CC_020000,)
^PCI\VEN_15AD&CC_0200})
^{HardwareID               : {PCI\}VEN_15AD&DEV_07B0&SUBSYS_07B015AD&REV_01,)
^PCI\VEN_15AD&DEV_07B0&SUBSYS_07B015AD,)
^PCI\VEN_15AD&DEV_07B0&CC_020000,)
^PCI\VEN_15AD&DEV_07B0&CC_0200})
^{Manufacturer             : Broadcom Inc.
PNPClass                 : Net
Present                  : False
Service                  : vmxnet3ndis6
PSComputerName           :
Class                    : Net
FriendlyName             : vmxnet3 Ethernet Adapter
InstanceId               : PCI\}VEN_15AD&DEV_07B0&SUBSYS_07B015AD&REV_01\005056FFFFB7243900)
^{Problem                  : CM\}PROB_PHANTOM)
^{ProblemDescription}      

The uninstall of the adapter:

^\Boot Session: 2026/07/17 06:47:41.742])

^{>>> \}Device Uninstall (Device Manager) - PCI\VEN_15AD&DEV_07B0&SUBSYS_07B015AD&REV_01\005056FFFFB7243900])
^{>>> Section start 2026/07/17 06:49:33.885}

^{cmd: "C:\}Windows\system32\mmc.exe" "C:\Windows\System32\devmgmt.msc")
^{dvi: {DIF\}REMOVE} 06:49:33.887)
^{dvi:      Default installer: Enter 06:49:33.887
dvi:           {Remove DEVICE}
dvi:                {Delete Device - PCI\}VEN_15AD&DEV_07B0&SUBSYS_07B015AD&REV_01\005056FFFFB7243900})
^{dvi:                {Delete Device - exit(0x00000000}})
^{dvi:           {Remove DEVICE exit (0x00000000}})
^{dvi:      Default installer: Exit
dvi: {DIF\}REMOVE - exit(0x00000000)} 06:49:33.896)

^{<<< Section end 2026/07/17 06:49:33.896}

^{<<< \}Exit status: SUCCESS])

SOLVED:

Somehow the old vmx and new Hyper-V adapter got the same instance number on the Driver key for the adapter. Therefore when you delete one, it deletes both because they both pointed to the same "configuration"

For example, under HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet for the VMX adapter you can see the Driver key using the same instance 0001. To fix, simply delete the Driver key from the phantom VMX adapter and then remove the phantom device. No reboot, rescan, or anytbing else is required:

Phantom VMXNET3 device entry:

Enum\PCI\VEN_15AD&DEV_07B0&SUBSYS_07B015AD&REV_01\005056FFFFB7243900

    Service       vmxnet3ndis6

    ClassGUID     {4d36e972-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}

    Driver        {4d36e972-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}\0001      ← shared

Live Microsoft Hyper-V Network Adapter device entry:

Enum\VMBUS{f8615163-df3e-46c5-913f-f2d2f965ed0e}{8312e7e5-4153-403b-be17-f3b61063afdc}

    Service       netvsc

    ClassGUID     {4d36e972-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}

    Driver        {4d36e972-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}\0001      ← shared (identical)

    FriendlyName  Microsoft Hyper-V Network Adapter

We're working through a hardware refresh to maintain roughly a 5-year lifecycle and to prepare for our migration from vSphere 8 to 9. One thing we've noticed is that the vSphere 9 HCL isn't nearly as forgiving as it was during the vSphere 7/8 era.

We hadn't requested server quotes in about a year, so this was a bit of a reality check.

Each year we work with our Dell VAR and maintain four standardized server tiers so we can order by profile instead of redesigning configs every time:

• Tier 1 – Dev (512 GB RAM)
• Tier 2 – Production (768 GB RAM)
• Tier 3 – SQL workloads (1 TB RAM)
• VDI Tier (2 TB RAM)

It makes procurement simple. I can just tell our VAR, "Quote me 12 Tier 1s and 6 Tier 2s."

When the first two quotes came back, I was honestly floored.

Three years ago:

• Comparable 512 GB system: ~$16K
• Comparable 768 GB system: ~$29K

Current quotes:

• Comparable 512 GB system: ~$57K
• Comparable 768 GB system: ~$81K

These are SAN-backed VMware hosts (no vSAN), so storage isn't driving the increase. I knew DDR5 memory prices had climbed, but I wasn't expecting anything close to this.

I'm curious what everyone else is seeing. Are these kinds of increases becoming the norm, or is this more vendor/configuration-specific? With many organizations trying to complete hardware refreshes before the October 2027 vSphere 8 end of support, I'm wondering if demand is starting to influence pricing as well.

So in trying to set vm to fullscreen, the top bar disappears. the only way to get out of the VM on a single monitor is to CTrl+alt+del and open the task manager (windows host)

ctrl alt and whatnot may or may not work, but even not selecting the vm the vm gets locked to the top so I can't alt tab on that monitor. Current version is 26H1

Hi,

I‘m looking for guidance on vSphere 8 Standard to VVF9 Upgrade. Simple 6 Node Cluster with FC SAN and Standard Switches. What is the right way to move to VVF9? Upgrade vCenter to Version 9 and run SDDC Manager Setup vor VVF? Can I stay an Standard Switches or is there a must for distributed Switches?