Workstation v14: NVMe driver for Windows 7 guest missing?

[SokoFromNZ]

Hi guys,

I'm just checking v14 before I pay for the upgrade from my v12.5.

Biggest selling point is the nvme support and (hopefully) better performance on my Samsung 960 Pro NVMe.

I was able to create and install a new VM with Windows Server 2016 on a NVMe vmdk with no problems.

But I also need support for my (existing) Win7 VMs.

So I added a 2nd harddrive to one of my existing Win7 VMs (after upgrading them from v12.5 to v14). And I updated the VM Tools with a complete installation as well.

But device manager still shows me an "Unkown PCI device" instead of the NVMe driver/disk.

Its Hardware-ID = VEN_15AD&DEV_07F0&SUBSYS_07F015AD&REV_00 which indicates as the VMWare NVMe controller.

How do I install the NVMe driver on my Win7 guest to make an NVMe vmdk work?

Thanks

Soko

[bluefirestorm · Accepted solution]

You may have to install a Microsoft hotfix to have native NVMe support for Windows 7.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2990941​

As for the driver itself, I do not know if that comes from VMware Tools or not but the vendor ID 15AD is VMware. So re-install the VMware Tools if the driver does not get picked up after the hotfix installation.

[SokoFromNZ]

sweet as, bro!

that worked like a charm!

Next step is to find out how to convert an existing vmdk (which is my C: on my Win7) to an NVMe vmdk...

[SokoFromNZ]

OK,

Here is how I converted an old (scsi,ide) vmdk to an NVMe:

0. Lets say your old vmdk is named hd0.vmdk

1. Create a new NVMe vmdk (nvme0.vmdk) and attach it to the guest.

2. Boot the guest and make sure it installs all the drivers and the new NVMe disk works

3. Shut down the VM

4. In the file-system delete the nvme0.vmdk and rename the hd0.vmdk file to nvme0.vmdk

5. Open the VM in Workstation and delete the created hard drive of step 1

6. Now your windows should boot and your original vmdk is now connected via NVMe on your guest OS

Soko

[TimothyHuckabay]

I am not sure your approach would work when the vmdk files are all two-gigabytes or less in size (i.e., when the vmdk is spread across many smaller files rather than being one huge file).  When using many smaller files (which is safer for verified backups, for example), it would actually be preferanble and I think necessary to clone the original drive to the new nvme drive, and then, when that has been done, to switch the boot drive to the latter, while removing the old drive from the VM.  To accomplish this, you would use cloning software in the VM just as you would with physical hardware.