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Vista Guest, Windows Update, Reboot Guest, VMware Hangs, Host needs Forced Reboot

Hi all,

I certainly don't have a clue about this... if this is a known problem or rings a bell, I'd appreciate any references.

Environment: Mac Pro, 8-core, 6GB RAM, Mac OS X 10.5.6; Fusion Build 128865 (2.0.1), Guest is Vista Business. This has happened twice:

1. Run Windows Update (seldom-used guest, so that seems to be mostly what I'm doing with it some days).

2. Wander away (I mean, who wants to watch that happening).

3. Indeterminate time later, come back to the machine. The guest has apparently stopped (black screen with "Play" button - guest powered off).

4. vmware-vmx is taking a bit over 100% CPU, and is unresponsive.

Then it gets interesting.

Activity Monitor, which I generally keep running, is itself unresponsive, after I try to Force-Quit the vmware-vmx process. Nothing I might do to look at the process will run - 'top' or ps freeze terminal (xterm) session. Cannot Force-Quit activity monitor. (OS X doesn't have a /proc pseudo-filesystem, so there's nothing else I can reall think of). So, I have to force reboot the host.

The Vista guest comes up complaining, but seems, eventually, happy enough.

Stuff I can think of:

  1. I'm running with Spaces, the VM guest in its own space in full-screen mode.

  2. It's possible the host may have gone to sleep in the process.

  3. 2 CPUs dedicated to the guest.

  4. Nothing really running in the guest other than A/V and Windows Update.

Questions I have:

  1. Usually, Windows reboots after service application, does not shut down. Or, will a guest power down/hibernate if there's a power-save option set?

  2. The only explanation that comes to mind about Activity Monitor freezing would be a situation where perhaps too many processes are created. I believe that I did get a message to that effect one time there was a similar issue.

  3. The vmware-vmfusion log doesn't have a smoking gun (because, partly, I'm unable to identify exactly when it dies), but I do see: VMHS: Connection to VM broken: cfg: /Users/kmp/Documents/Virtual Machines.localized/Vista Test 1.vmwarevm/Vista Test 1.vmx; error: Pipe connection has been broken; state: 3.

This doesn't seem to be the kind of problem that is other than occasional, but I'd love ideas to diagnose.

Thanks!

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