Windows 2008 R2 + ESX4 + vCenter Client Console = FREEZE

[joergriether]

Hello,

i reproduced this several times now and also found a coressponding thread in the microsoft newsgroups, ( http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsserver2008r2general/thread/bc0f3c12-eda7-440... ) so here you go:

Install a fresh W2008 R2 to an ESX4 machine, do this all with vCenter Client Console, not with reomte RDP. Add the role

Remote-Desktop-Services to the newly created W2008 R2 machine, reboot, after reboot when the machine tries to finish

the changes (after logon) it totally freezes.

Now the interesting part on that:

If you log on via RDP after the reboot (oh yeah, you urgently need to turn rdp on before reboot!!!), then

the installer of the role WILL FINISH!!!

Now how strange is that?

Any ideas?

best,

Joerg

[JoshO4]

Another confirmed case here.

1) ESXi 4.0 on HP BL680

2) WS08 R2 x64

3) Reproduceable by brwosing in Explorer to c:\windows\system32\sysprep

4) Problem resolved by uninstalling VMware tools and reinstalling without the SVGA driver.

[doubleH]

Same issue here with the freezing when building my template. Will try again this time not installing the SVGA driver.

HP DL385 G2

Windows Server 2008 Std R2

ESX 3.5

[markzz]

For those sceptics, this is an issue.

I can assure you I too am experiencing the same issue.

If you don't load the VMWare tools you therefore don't load the VMWare VGA driver, or in short the VGA driver appears to be the issue.

Change your VGA Driver to standard, of course you'll see the graphics performance decrease but hey it doesn't hang.

Get a wriggle on VMWare.

We are going production with Windows 2008R2 SP2 now..

[joergriether]

Oh yes, it is. And what an issue it is. I must state I am very disappointed by vmware, because of this issue and because of the guest memory issue with esx4. I can´t believe it. This is professional software, many people (like me) are paying lots of money for it, I am responsible for a huge datacenter with many esx machines. How in the world can an issue like this one occur when the beta and rc software is there for many months. And even more bad, how can something like this here (http://communities.vmware.com/thread/211585) occur???

And now the most important question to vmware: Why is this not fixed by today when it is known FOR MONTHS??????

Joerg

[jbourget]

I was having the same issue, and downgrading the video driver fixed it. Screen still looks fine though.

[schenkem]

FWIW, same issue, same workarounds

IBM eServer BladeCenter HS21 -[7995AC1]-, VMWare ESX Server 3i, 3.5.0 176894, VMWare Infrastructure Client 2.5.0 147633, VMWare Virtual Center 2.5.0 104215

Windows Explorer seems to be the best at "triggering" the issue during mouseover events on icons for objects in the menus or filesystem- but not exactly reproducible, as sometimes it freezes / hangs and sometimes it works OK.

[schepp]

I'm Running ESX4 on Fujitsu Primergy RX330. At the moment I have 5 Windows 2008 Servers (3 R2) running on different ESX hosts. Not one crash so far.

[schenkem]

To clarify: Windows 2008 (not R2) has been stable on our platform for months: we"ve just started working with R2 RTM, and have only had this freeze (not really a crash) issue with Windows 2008 R2 Standard, after installation of VMWare tools. Using the VGA driver as suggested above, or simply not installing VMWare tools at all makes the issue go away for us.

[tWiZzLeR]

Because of the other benefits that you receive when installing the VMware Tools I highly recommend installing them, just perform a custom installation and unselect the Video driver for the time being for Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 guest OS's. Hopefully, VMware will address this issue soon.

[mortonpe]

Turning on Full Hardware Acceleration seemed to solve the problem for us.

[cjf91jf1l]

I'm also experiencing this issue with Server 2008 R2 RTM code from technet. VM is fine until vmware tools (typical install) is performed. Once the tools are installed, the machine will freeze at random times depending on the graphics being displayed. I was working on creating a template and noticed this every time I tried to collapse a large key in the registry, such as HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version.

[GeirBjo]

Setting Hardware Accelleration FULL only improves somewhat the issue. Its still there but does'nt happen quite that often. Its best to revert to standard VGA driver until issue is officially resolved by vmware.

Windows 2008 Server R2 RTM

ESX 3.5

IBM x3550

[LucasAlbers]

So the system will not lockup if you are using a rdp session?

Heres a fix, don't use the client console once you get the system on the network.

Of course I am sure vmware will fix the issue, but it has an easy enough interim workaround.

[ckness]

Running ESXI 4 fully patched running windows 2008 r2 full release product volume lic with sql 2008 sp1 vmware tools installed. Try to run managment studio to connect ot database manger will freeze interface every time. VM still running can copy stuff to and from from workstations. Remove vmware tools and problem appears to go away...... Took alot of googling to find this thread to find out vmware tools causing problem. I to am surprised vmware has not updated their tool set to fix this problem. This is after hours working on microsoft side of things ...................... : (

Is there a time frame that a tools update will be coming out ... Since this version of microsoft has been production for a little while and beta for a very long time ...

[LucasAlbers]

I have the exact same setup del r710 host, windows 2008 r2 with sql server 2008 sp1.

I have been running it for 5 days, and just did a 30 gig database copy from our production sql server.

I am connecting via rdp, and using vmxnet3.

Did you open a support incident?

[AlbertWT]

How does one do the VCB backup of Windows Server 2008 R2 VM ?

Yes so far i'm able to install it with the proper release of Windows

Server 2008 R2, but the backup using VCB will give you the following

error:

"*VCB Error: Cannot create a quiesced snapshot because the create snapshot operation exceeded the time limit for holding off I/O in the frozen virtual machine*"

Kind Regards,

AWT

[jefmes]

I just wanted to throw in some more info here in case anyone else comes across this issue. We're running ESX 3.5U4 on HP DL380G5s and we're also seeing the issue. I'm about to uninstall VMTools and re-install without the graphics driver to see if it performs better. And yes, to clarify this is with 2008R2 using the Windows Server 2008 x64 profile during installation. I'll report back if the issue appears to be fixed.

EDIT - 9/22/09 - So far so good, no more lockups except for discovering a problem with TrendMicro OfficeScan 8 installing on 2008 R2. Seems to halt during the install but completes the installation after reboot.

[mp125]

Same freezing issue here with an HP ML110. Re-installing Vmware Tools without SVGA driver seems to have fixed the problem. Thanks to everyone who mentioned it.

[TransennaTCF]

You should disable hardware accelleration under the advanced section of the video driver; this worked for all the tests where I could reproduce the eroor under other cercumstances (spelling??).

[joergriether]

VMware, how about a status on this one, it´s been a while now!

regards,

Joerg