Workstation 12.5.6 on W10 (1703) and W7 Clients

[Xatosch]

Hi!

Using W7 Clients (Ultimate) which where created with Workstation 12.5 and worked good with Windows 10 (1607). After a complete new installation of W10 to 1703 (Upgrade doesn't work for me) the W7 Machines are:

- Very slow

- Grafic is slow

- But the worst is: The machines crashes after a short time with a bluescreen 😞

It is nearlly impossible to do something with this machines...

All my W10 and XP and Unix Clients are working good and stable, only W7 is awful

Can you fix this? I don't want and can't install W10 1607, with which the problems where not present...

Regards, Kai Brendel

[bluefirestorm]

Are you by any chance using AVG or Avast antivirus? Maybe with your clean install with 1703, the AVG or Avast got the virtualisation features. If you are using either have a look at this thread on how to disable the virtualization feature of either AVG or Avast.

XP VM suddenly slow, Win 7 fine

Not so sure what to make of the crashing of the Win 7 VM (yet). Any particular error message(s) that jump out?

[Xatosch]

No, there ist nothing else the original "defender" from microsoft, which I used also under W10 1607...

I have played around:

- One of the machines runs nearly good, but I can't leave with the mouse the window, I have to press Ctrl-Alt first

- VMWareTools are installed!

- Then adjusting the "display" set to host settings, 1 GB RAM, 3D an "Adjust from host"...

- After this the client crashes every time after a few seconds...

- When the client runs not in full screen, I can't click into the window, by doing this, the mouse jumps to the second monitor

- Click on a different register, to activate an other machine, vmware crashes by it self...

- And vmware crahes often "two times" when trying to start the machine

- After restart of vmware, the machine is runninng..

- the blue screens I can't see, because they are only visible for a second, then reboot...

- I have tried to film it, but the output window in this moment ist only 100x100 pixel, you can't read anything

by the way, only W7... W10, XP and others are working well and in full performance...

and: starting in "Save Mode", the machine runs good, I think it has something to do with VMware Tools??

Regards, Kai

[Xatosch]

I have no Win 8.1 clients, but I think this is the same problem:

"Out of Memory" errors after Windows 10 Creators Update

[bluefirestorm]

The "Out of memory" after Windows 10 Creators Update was caused by Virtual Printer enabled. This should have been fixed with 12.5.6.

It is strange that it only affects Windows 7.

Though you say the Win7 VM was created with 12.5, what was the Hardware Compatibility you selected when it was created (you can see from the VM in the tab view when is it not started or you can go menu VM -> Manage -> Change Hardware Compatibility ? Is it Version 12 or some earlier version? Version 12 supports DX10 in the Win 7 and later VMs which leads to better graphics performance.

If you don't mind, attach the vmx configuration and/or vmware.log of the problematic Win 7 VM and I'll have a look.

EDIT: Also attach a dxdiag.txt of both the host and the problematic Win 7 VM.

[Xatosch]

Hi...

yes, the hardware compatibility is at 12...

attached a screen shot, this occurs in a loop after a few seconds the machine is started..

attached the dxdiag and vmx and log files

in the dxdiag I have seen the system is set to 120 DPI, this is not correct, it is definitly at 100%...

but the vmtools try to set the (w7) machine also to 120 DPI, under XP and W10 they do not

Regards, Kai

[bluefirestorm]

I couldn't find anything in the vmx that would indicate a problem.

From the log files, when it tries to open the virtual hard disk of the VM

2017-05-27T08:00:11.644+02:00| vmx| I125: DISKUTILWIN32: DiskUtilW32_IsPhysicalSSD: Failed to get the extents of the volume \\?\Volume{ee321bb7-4233-11e7-b603-6805ca47c9a1}\ error 234

2017-05-27T07:57:37.785+02:00| vmx| I125: DISKUTILWIN32: DiskUtilW32_IsPhysicalSSD: Failed to get the extents of the volume \\?\Volume{ee321bb7-4233-11e7-b603-6805ca47c9a1}\ error 234

2017-05-26T13:58:15.672+02:00| vmx| I125: DISKUTILWIN32: DiskUtilW32IsATASSDDevice: Failed to send ATA IDENTIFY command to the target device.

2017-05-26T13:58:15.672+02:00| vmx| I125: DISKUTILWIN32: DiskUtilW32IsScsiSSDDevice: Reported rotation rate = 65534

2017-05-25T13:09:05.227+02:00| vmx| I125: DISKUTILWIN32: DiskUtilW32IsATASSDDevice: Failed to send ATA IDENTIFY command to the target device.

2017-05-25T13:09:05.227+02:00| vmx| I125: DISKUTILWIN32: DiskUtilW32IsScsiSSDDevice: Reported rotation rate = 65534

I don't know why VMware Workstation would use two different methods for the same VM.

In my VMs, DiskUtilW32IsATASSDDevice is used and if the VM is on SSD it reports the rotation rate as 1 and identify the virtual disk of the VM as Virtual SSD. If the VM is on hard disk, it reports the correct rotational speed (in my case a slow 5400 rpm disk).

Are your other virtual machines on the same U hard drive? Maybe it is the physical hard drive where the VM resides that is a problem.

[Xatosch]

Hi...

I have found an older backup of the machines and copied it to the host, and with the configuration they had during backup the machines are working... I used the "old" vmx with the "new" vmdk's and the same behaviour: crash... I think there is some "in" windows or the vmdk had got a binary crash/failure, I don know...

The performance issue is because auf "Windows Storage Spaces", I have killed this and changed to "StripeSet", a little bit better, but then changed to "Single Drive" and all is good... The performance is far far away from my SSD's, but for this machines it is ok...

[bluefirestorm]

I see that both the drive S: and U: are WD Red NAS hard disks. I never used NAS drives before as regular desktop drives before so I have no prior experience to gauge it. But I read differing opinions whether NAS drives are suitable to be used as regular desktop drives or not. Some say it will be more prone to report errors than regular drives. Some say it is fine as long as it is in RAID configuration as that was it was designed for. While others says it is completely fine regardless of configuration.

Anyway, it is better you check with the hardware experts on this.

[Xatosch]

The desktop performance of the WD RED is not so good, like a 7200 rpm drive, but my main work is on SSD's and this two drives are for backup puporse, my NAS for example, and for large vmdk's where the machine itself resides on a ssd...

there are some old w7 machine I start once a month, for accounting staff, or image processing with special software 🙂 so performace is not the main goal, but with Storage Spaces and StripeSets it was a no go...