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meistermn
Expert
Expert

How do I upgrade a existing network card form e1000 nic to vmware enhanced nic in windows 2003 64 bit?

Per default windows 2003 64 Bit is installed with e1000 nic.

Is it posible to change the network card to the vmware enhanced network card ?

Yes i can shutdown and power the vm, but over the gui it is not possible.

So change vmx file and power up the vm and install the vmware tools over map tools cd?

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11 Replies
kooltechies
Expert
Expert

Hi,

You can shutdown the vm put this entry in the .vmx file and start the VM.

ethernet0.virtualDev = "vmxnet3”

Thanks,

Samir

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RDPetruska
Leadership
Leadership

Any particular reason you want to do this? The E1000 virtual NIC was created specifically for newer OS's and for 64-bit OS's, as the older Lance PCNet virtual NIC did not support them. The E1000 is a Gigabit card, compared to a 10-base (or 100-base for the vmxnet Accelerated Lance) one, so the "performance" should also be better.

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meistermn
Expert
Expert

Read the Whitepaper "Performance Comparison of Virtual Network Devices"

-> Conclusion E1000 is emulated network driver !!! Needs more registers . VMXnet needs fewer registers !!!

1.) "The e1000 device driver is also bundled with most operating systems and provides ready-to-use network connectivity and improved performance over the vlance device."

-> This statement is true.

2.)"Vmxnet, a paravirtualized device used for high I/O performance, was previously supported for most 32-bit guest operating systems. The user needs to install VMware Tools to access the vmxnet driver; in the absence

of VMware tools, the device behaves like a vlance device.

-> This means for many vm's on one esx host it should perform better than the e1000 driver.

3.)" ESX Server 3.5 introduces the enhanced-vmxnet device for a majority of operating systems. The enhanced vmxnet device supports 64-bit operating systems and also adds support for advanced features, such as TCP

Segmentation Offload (TSO) and Jumbo Frames."

-> Advantage of the enhanced vmxnet device over the e1000 supports TSO and Jumbo Frames.

4. Disadvantage for E1000 device :"

In ESX Server, there are differences in the way network I/O is triggered for the e1000 and vmxnet virtual

network devices. ESX Server needs to emulate the complete e1000 device in the software so that guests with

unmodified e1000 drivers can interact with the device. Each transmit or receive call causes access to a number

of virtual device registers. This level of access is expensive because each instance causes an address space

switch. Attempts to minimize this performance hit can introduce latencies in the I/O path. Also, the number

of possible optimizations to e1000 is limited by the fact that the driver code cannot be modified.

5. Advantage for VMXNET driver

The vmxnet driver, however, is a virtualization-aware driver. The device and the driver have been designed

with virtualization in mind. Both the device driver and the virtual device code have been optimized to reduce

the number of virtual register accesses and provide good performance through polling and direct calls into the

VMkernel. As a result, vmxnet exhibits lower latencies than e1000.

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oreeh
Immortal
Immortal

You can only upgrade / change by unregistering the VM, manually modifying the VMX and re-registering the VM.

Since the ESX 3.0 days there's a feature request open to change the vNIC type via the VIC / VI (just as it was possible with the ESX 2.5 Web UI) but I doubt we'll see it anytime soon.

meistermn
Expert
Expert

this means allthough after changing this, i will have a hidden device after starting the vm. Logon on with a local adminstrator on windows and map the vmware tools cd and install the driver.

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oreeh
Immortal
Immortal

Exactly

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Rob_Bohmann1
Expert
Expert

Try this, a sticking point I have seen is to make sure the OS selected says 64 bit in the vm properties...

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=1007195&sl...

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Cooldude09
Commander
Commander

Shutdown the VM, Delete the network Card. Save the changes

Add the network card and select vmxnet from the dropdown selection whicle adding the card

Power on the VM, re-install VMWare tools if it is required. You will see it as VMware enhanced card in the device Manager as required.

Regards

Anil

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msemon1
Expert
Expert

Here is what I did to change my Windows 2003 and Windows 2008 std and Ent to the advanced vmxnet driver.

To enable the enhanced vmxnet option when configuring an existing virtual machine

  1. In the VI Client, power off the virtual machine.

  2. Right-click the virtual machine and select Edit Settings.

  3. In the Virtual Machine Properties dialog, select the Options tab.

  4. Click General Options, and change the guest operating system to Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition (64-bit).

  5. Click the Hardware tab, and then select the Network Adapter.

  6. Click Remove.

  7. Click Add. The Add Hardware wizard appears.

  8. Select the device type and click Next.

  9. Select Enhanced vmxnet as the adapter type, and click Next.

  10. Click Finish.

  11. Click OK to dismiss the Virtual Machine Properties dialog.

  12. Power on the virtual machine.

The only diference between Windows 2003 and Windows 2008 is in step 5 you change to Windows Server 2008.

The only difference I do is change the Virtual Machine properties back when finished to what it was before.

Thanks everyone for clearing up this topic. It used to be easier in version 2.5

Mike

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msemon1
Expert
Expert

Anyone have a script that can tell which of your guests in cluster or farm have which virtual NIC drivers?

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jagdish_rana
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi,

Please take a downtime of VM.

Follow the action point as below:-

1.  Note down the IP configuration of VM and arrange the local administrator password.

2.  Shut down the VM.

3. Edit the VM and remove the existing network card and add a new adapter as vmnext3.

4. Power on the VM and configure the IP configuration.

Hope it will help you.

Thanks

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