Fault causes virtual CPU to shut down - MacOS 10.13.5, Fusion 7.1.3, Windows 7 Service Pack 1, 32 bit

[RocketG]

The latest Windows 7 update has made it impossible to log on in normal mode.  This was true under El Capitan before I upgraded to High Sierra.  This is the message in the dialog box that pops up:

A fault has occurred causing a virtual CPU to enter the shutdown state.

If this fault had occurred outside of a virtual machine, it would have caused the physical machine to restart. The shutdown state can be reached by incorrectly configuring the virtual machine, a bug in the guest operating system, or a problem in VMware Fusion.

Click OK to restart the virtual machine or Cancel to power off the virtual machine.

On restart, safe mode with networking works, for what it's worth. Do I need to upgrade Fusion or might the problem be somewhere else?

Thanks!

[ColoradoMarmot]

You have to upgrade Fusion for High Sierra.  Try that first and see if it fixes things.

[RocketG]

OK, I upgraded to Fusion 10.1.2 but the fault still occurs.  Several seconds before the fault occurs a Windows Installer "Preparing to install..." modal dialog pops up.

[RocketG]

I turned on Hang/Crash Troubleshooting in the virtual machine, however the zip file it produced is too big to attach.  Is there a dropbox I could upload it to?

[ColoradoMarmot]

So you never even get the option to boot windows into safe mode?

Sounds like the OS may be corrupt.  My suggestion would be to make a copy of the VM (not time machine), then boot from install media and try to repair the windows install.

[RocketG]

No, sorry, safe mode works fine, to the extent it does anything at all.

[ColoradoMarmot]

Hmmm, at that point it's definitely inside the windows install.  'fraid we're near the end of my knowledge, beyond doing an overlay install.  Anyone else have ideas?

[RocketG]

at that point it's definitely inside the windows install.

That's credible.  It seems to be a recent Windows update that causes the problem but I don't know which one or how to get rid of it.  VMware support pointed me to a particular update that (among other things)

• Addresses a stop error that occurred when the previous month’s update was applied to a 32-bit (x86) computer with a Physical Address Extension (PAE) mode disabled.

My Win7 install is indeed 32-bit. I have no idea what PAE is or how to determine if it's disabled.

[RocketG]

OK, here's the latest.  As I kept retrying to start Windows in normal mode I noticed small (progressing, sort of) differences in the behavior before the crash.  A few times only the ghost of the Windows installer dialog appeared, and after a few more reboots not even the ghost appeared.  Thinking that perhaps the crash was preventing an update installation from completing, but moving it forward a little more each time, I did a few more reboots and now Windows seems to be stable.  For now I'm going to assume the problem. dlhotka​, thanks for helping me think this through!

VMware tech support had suggested that a particular Windows update (KB4093118) might be the cause. It wasn't in the list of installed updates when the crash was occurring and still isn't there now that things are stable.

Just in case it helps someone in the future I've attached the relevant tail of tmp/system.log from the Fusion crash diagnostic output.

[baweeks]

About a six weeks ago on the phone with VMWare, over this issue of a guest Win7 32-bit crashing with a CPU fault drop-down dialog sheet, using Fusion 10.x, the rep said it's a known bug. The rep took control of my screen, turned off the Windows Update service, and we rolled back several recent updates after doing some kind of safe boot in Windows that I don't know about (I know much more about the macOS than Windows). He said that it was a Meltdown/Spectre update for Windows 7 32-bit that was causing it. He said that the guest running in Fusion itself was already protected from Meltdown/Spectre. He said that VMWare and Microsoft were actively working on the issue. About 2-3 weeks ago, I emailed the rep, and asked if the bug were fixed, he said yes, and I updated my virtual machine, and the crash still occurred. I sent them an angry email, asking them why they told me to update the VM when the bug was not fixed, and asking why they've not posted a KB article about it, and why they didn't admit fault here. Yesterday, I tried to fully update a copy of the virtual machine, and the same fault occurred; they've still not fixed it. I think this is poor performance on their part.

[techy1972]

I recently did Microsoft updates and got the "Fault causes virtual CPU to shut down" issue. Uninstalling Security Updates for Microsoft Windows KB4284826 resolved my issue from Windows Safe Mode.  Thank goodness I had only 7 updates to go through.  I rebooted and verified if the uninstall of the particular update did the trick....KB4284826 finally did the trick.

[patjdixon]

I had the same problem although I did not have KB4284826 installed.  I removed Windows security updates dated 10/24/18 and that prevented crashed.  Then overnight security updates were automatically installed dated 11/11/18 and VMware crashed.  I removed those updates and set Windows Update service to Manual start.  I think that fixes it.