All this happened and every VM I run is terribly slow.

[BillReynolds]

So, I start up a Virtual Machine, it takes 5 min to boot, when it's done, It takes at least 3 min. to log me in, then I'm greeted with a distorted, choppy startup sound. The Explorer takes around a minute to actually appear, and it is just overall slow. Programs take ages to start, and the mouse pointer freezes in a spot around every second. The disk activity is at 100% while a VM is running. The VM runs slow to the point of almost being rendered inoperable. If I try to install another OS on another VM, it takes ~4hr. It also impales performance on my host PC. But, it wasn't always like this. My VMs used to take from 5-30 seconds to boot, logged in almost instantly, and ran unconditionally fast. "How did it get like this?", you may be thinking. Here is everything I did before it got like this. I wanted to run Windows 9x on a VM, but VMWare didn't have sound drivers, and VirtualBox didn't have video drivers. The last program I knew it worked on was Microsoft Virtual PC 2007. So, I went to Microsoft's download site, and downloaded the 64-Bit version. Then I installed it as usual. Then when I open it, I am greeted with "This app can't run on your PC. Virtual PC dosen't work on this version of Windows (Windows 10 Professional Build 14393.953 64-Bit). Then I renamed Virtual PC.exe (C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Virtual PC) to 123.exe, When it started, I clicked New, named the VM "Windows 98", selected Windows 98, gave it 3Gb of RAM, and 32Gb of HDD space (Expanding). I tried to start it, but I get an error (of which I don't remember, something about VT-X), so I go into settings, and I disable Hardware-Assisted Virtualization. I try to start it again, and in all fear, I get the dreaded BSoD. I am told that VMM.SYS failed. After it restarts, I start one of my VirtualBox VMs. It ran as described at the top. I tried some more (including the ones in VMWare) and I get the same bad performance. I don't know how it got that way, and I need help with this. Please? I used to use VMWare and VirtualBox every day.

[BillReynolds]

"Although if I was in your shoes I'd be verifying that virtualbox and MS VPC got uninstalled completely."

I checked the Program Files folder and those folders didn't exist.

"In your opening post, you mentioned that there is some serious disk trashing going on, so I would also verify that there's enough free RAM (so you're not basically running from swap) and that the disks of the VM are not very fragmented (see also: vmware player - Will fragmentation of a virtual machine's disk also cause host OS disk fragmentation...​  )"

Host - 0%, just defragged yesterday.

Guest - Defrag.exe stopped responding and killed explorer, so I don't know.

"Oh wait.. explorer is the highest user? Are you using shared folders? Try disabling that and see if that calms down explorer."

I rely on Drag n' Drop and Shared Clipboard for stuff like that, so I don't use shared folders. The explorer still is at high cpu, though.

[BillReynolds]

I'm saying this so you can understand why VM's matter to me:

I remember older versions of Windows, and I want to bring back the nostalgia of something like say, Windows XP. If I lose the ability to virtualize and hypervise, then I have a void left in me. That void can't be filled with anything else except a lot of time. But, even if all hope is lost, I'm getting a better PC in less than 2 weeks, so I would get that back. I just want you to know this, and why I support this community.

[wila]

Hi,

No worries I understand.

Wish I had an answer to your issue. As you mentioned you are not running Avast antivirus, it is not that. There's another regular antivirus here with issues called AVG.

In fact I'd go as far as suggesting to uninstall the host antivirus (assuming you run one) to exclude it from interfering with your VMs performance, same for the guest if you run an antivirus there.

Just looked again at your supplied vmware.log file and while it has a few jumps in time, there's nothing obvious in the log jumping out to me.

Something has changed at your host making it behave like that and it isn't clear what exactly that has been.

--

Wil

[BillReynolds]

"In fact I'd go as far as suggesting to uninstall the host antivirus (assuming you run one) to exclude it from interfering with your VMs performance, same for the guest if you run an antivirus there."

Been there, done that, didn't work. *Le Sigh*

"Something has changed at your host making it behave like that and it isn't clear what exactly that has been."

The BSoD I mentioned? I know for a fact that the BSoD has something to do with this problem.

[BillReynolds]

*Deep Breath*

The BSoD caused the problem. But how? I have inferred that there is something wrong with VMM.SYS, but what am I supposed to do I do with a problematic driver?

[wila]

Hi,

vmm.sys is not from VMware..

According to this page:

vmm.sys Windows process - What is it?

it is part of Microsoft Virtual PC.

This is what I meant when I said "making sure all other hypervisors are uninstalled completely", sorry if that wasn't clear.

But you have to make sure that there are no drivers loaded from VPC or VBox.

If it is still loading that driver then yes that might cause issues.

edit: to answer the question "What am I supposed to do with it" a bit more specific. If you can see this driver being loaded in hardware -not sure if that's still visible in W10, no W10 box here at hand to check- and otherwise.. rename the vmm.sys file into something else. You probably can't rename it when booted in W10 normally. You can try safe mode, or otherwise boot from a live CD.

Once you verified that you can boot normally with vmm.sys renamed you can delete the file.

--

Wil

[BillReynolds]

Sorry I wasted your time, but VMM.SYS dosen't exist. I saw other drivers with vm- at the beginning of them, though. Do you mind if you write a full list of VPC's and Virtualbox's drivers?

[martijntonies]

Hi,

First, let me state: I have no idea how to help you.

But... since last weekend, all my VMs (in VMWare Workstation 11 on Windows 10) are running dead slow. This includes VMs with Windows XP and Windows 7.

Repainting windows is very slow, restarting is a drag. If I use Task Manager in the VM, it takes the bulk of the CPU, Explorer comes next.

My host system appears not to be infected, it's shows vmware-vmx.exe as taking about 15% of the CPU, if I run multiple VMs, they all take about 10-15% without doing anything. Memory isn't a problem, the host OS has 32GB and has plenty left. CPU is a i7-3770 @ 3.4GHz.

No clue what caused it. I did notice a Windows update Friday.

[wila]

Hello,

I would not mind to give you a list, but I have no idea about virtualbox or Virtual PC as I do not use those products.

What I would do in your case is to look in Windows 10 device manager, select also hidden devices and go over each device and driver and remove the ones that are obsolete.

You might want to make a backup beforehand.

--

Wil

[wila]

Hello martijntonies,

While there might be some similarities, you're probably best off opening your own topic.

--

Wil

[Jorge74]

Hi:

  First of all, sorry for my bad english level (i am spanish).

  I am the same issue. It all started the past friday (march 17), after a Windows 10 update. It's a nightmare. I have work paralyzed since then. I'm migrating to virtual box.

  What is happening?

Regards

Jorge

[martijntonies]

OK, I found the cause for my issue. It was the Avast virus scanner (that updated last Friday). Disabling it doesn't work, uninstalling does.

There's posts on the Avast forum for this. I wrote a support e-mail and got this reply:

We would like to inform you that, we are aware of this issue and the concerned team is working on it to fix it shortly.

Meanwhile, you can disable the hardware assisted virtualization to fix the issue.

  Open Avast - Settings - Troubleshooting - Uncheck "Enable hardware assisted virtualization"

Hope this helps.

[Jorge74]

Awesome ... i unistalled the Avast and now the VMWare Workstation works fine.

Thank yo very much for the hint. I was desesperate.

Regards

Jorge

[BillReynolds]

Hi,

The disk thrashing has not only gotten worse since my last reply, but I can't even shut down a VM, without VMware freezing, becoming unresponsive, and killing the explorer (on my host) as I try to end the process "VMware Workstation VMX". and please don't tell me to "Buy a new PC" or "Reinstall Windows".

Thanks,

Bill

[gimmely]

I'm wondering what your host's performance looks like without VMware or any virtual driver - folders holding guests can remain.

[BillReynolds]

It runs like a higher-end machine, TBH.

[BillReynolds]

Isn't anybody going to respond? Also, I'll get a new PC by next week.

[gimmely]

Here are my suggestions:

If your focus is on the new PC, please make sure that you install VMware Workstation only.  If you have to use other products for virtual machines, install that product only.  Also, please make sure that you have enough memory on your host for both the host and the guest - I suppose you'll have only one VM guest built.  The reason I'm saying this is that your current/old PC has 8GB memory only, with 4GB allocated/assigned to the VM, according to your original post.  If your host constantly uses over 4GB memory - or, happened to use over 4GB memory when you ran the VM guest, you run into contention or competition between the host and the guest in memory utilization, which should bring everything to a halt.  So far, we've not seen what Task Manager or Control Panel should show for either the host or the guest or both, which should help investigate or analyze if you want to know "why" about your current/old PC.

In the meantime, please note that most people are volunteers in this community/forum.  People try to help based on their experiences.  Therefore, the more you can provide and the more specific you can be, the more you help others help you.

[wila]

Hi,

As Gimmely correctly mentions, we're pretty much all volunteers down here and most of us are not employed by VMware. (employees have a little vm badge near their name)

Personally I've been burning my free time on programming in open source over the past two weeks, so am responding a bit less and slower than usual.

Things I would still suggest to try are:

- turn off 3D (if not already off)

- try to set the virtual hardware of your virtual machine to an older version (like virtual hardware 10)

I think I already suggested to try an older version of Workstation (eg. 12.1)

Those are all actions that others have reported before that helped them to speed up a now slow virtual machine.

But as I have no idea what is causing your issues I'm also a bit sceptical on it helping.

In addition make backups of your valuable VMs as needed before trying any of the above suggestions.

--

Wil

[BillReynolds]

"Things I would still suggest to try are:

- turn off 3D (if not already off)

- try to set the virtual hardware of your virtual machine to an older version (like virtual hardware 10)

I think I already suggested to try an older version of Workstation (eg. 12.1)"

I've tried for the past hour, but I gave up hope.

"In addition make backups of your valuable VMs as needed before trying any of the above suggestions."

No, because I don't want to transfer anything from this "problematic" PC, as it may just kill the new one, too.

Thank you all for your help. I hope I haven't been a bother to anybody.