topic vmci.sys - simple question in VMware Workstation Pro Discussions

vmci.sys - simple question

kasper — Mon, 08 Nov 2021 01:48:29 GMT

Windows server throws vmci.sys in by default. Other scenarios install it by default too on various guests. If I edit the guest vmx and set vmci0.present = "FALSE" before I install the OS it does not install vmci.sys up to 16.1.2. Now 16.2 seems to have a mandatory install even when doing all of the above. So for Windows guests can go into the registry and under 'services' for vmci change the startup from 0 (boot) to 4 disable. As far as I can tell I have no need for it and would like to have it gone (side note: youtube flaming lips with miley cyrus LSD). In Windows if I disable the VMCI service are there any side effects given the guest is not using this?

Re: vmci.sys - simple question

wila — Mon, 08 Nov 2021 10:41:42 GMT

Hi,

@kasper wrote:

As far as I can tell I have no need for it and would like to have it gone.
In Windows if I disable the VMCI service are there any side effects given the guest is not using this?

You're wrong, vmci is required nowadays for VMware Tools.

Quote:
Note: VMCI driver cannot be disabled as the VMware Tools System service functionality is dependent on this driver.

--
Wil

Re: vmci.sys - simple question

kasper — Tue, 09 Nov 2021 00:31:18 GMT

Thank you for your response. The link to the VMTools doc was extremely helpful. I was hoping to more with less. You can set the services to manual on the Windows guest. And you can set the vmci.sys device driver to not start on boot. But then things get slightly flaky. The doc was what I needed to confirm what to keep running.