Bridged networking not working on Vista host (Workstation 6)

[Frazz]

Hi All,

I've been using Workstation 6 betas for a number of months (hosted on Vista Ultimate). After installing the relesae version of Workstation 6 bridged networking in my VM (XP Pro) no longer works.

Virutal Network Editor settings contains:

Summary:

VMnet0 (Bridged to an automatically chosen adapter - subnet/DHCP are blank)

VMnet1 (A private virutal network)

VMnet8 (NAT) (Used to share host's IP address)

Automatic Bridging:

Checkbox for 'Automatically choose and available physical network adapter to bridge to VMnet0' is checked but is disabled (greyed out).

Strangely, the 'Add Excluded Adapters' dialog shows no network adapters if the 'Add...' button is clicked on this tab.

Host Virtual Network Mapping:

VMnet0 set to 'Bridged to an automatically chosen adapter'

Host Virtual Adaters tab is empty.

DHCP tab shows just VMnet1 and VMnet8

On starting the VM the following message is posted:

'The network bridge on device VMnet0 is not running.

The virtual machine will not be able to communicate with the host or other machines on your network.

Virtual device Ethernet0 will start disconnected.

I've tried:

Uninstalled the final beta (which worked) correctly.

Ran the setup with the /c option.

Reinstalled the release version several times but with no success.

The setupapi.app.log file contains the following line mentioning vmware_bridge:

cci: \[NCI BEGIN Install Queue (0x000010E4)]

cci: NCI: 10 items in the queue

cci: NCI: Install Queue asking for write lock.

cci: NCI: Install Queue acquired write lock.

cci: \[NCI BEGIN IQ Notify engine: Action 2 for device ROOT\VMWARE\0000]

cci: \!!! NCI: (loading external data) Error 0x80070002 opening vmware_bridge instance key

cci: \[NCI END IQ Notify engine: Result 0x80070002 for device ROOT\VMWARE\0000]

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Frazz

[KevinMull]

Having the exact same problem as the one mentioned above.

[efglynn]

Exactly same problem. Bridged networking doesn't work on Vista with Workstation 6. Need solution.

[efglynn]

Clarification: Bridged networking doesn't work on Vista host with Workstation 6 with Windows 2000 or Windows XP virtual machines, but it worked fine with Windows 98 or RedHat 7.2. I'm not sure why Windows 95 didn't work either.

[PaulMacFarlane]

Are you using Vista64 ?

I had the same problem. Changed my host OS to Vista32 and the problem went away....

[txhawkeye]

I have encountered what may be the same problem with a Windows 2000 guest.

What I found is that VMXnet on the V6 VMware tools causes the Windows 2000 guest OS to have problems with TCP window sizes being very small or even 0 (even though the TCP registry entries are defined for 32KB TCP windows).

As a result, some TCP connections work, others are very slow, others hang.

The problem goes away if I don't install the V6 tools or install them but don't install VMXnet via the 'custom' install. (It also goes away if I install the V5.5 tools - including VMXnet - on the V6 VM).

If you haven't done so, you may want to see if the problem goes away without the V6 tools installed and/or with the V6 tools installed except for VMXnet.

[Frazz]

Still having the problem. (Vista 32 BTW)

I've been getting some help from support at VMWare. They suggested turning off UAC then re-installing. Didn't work for me but maybe something for others to try.

Basically the thinking is that bridge networking is failing to install on the host due to security issues (looking at the logs).

I'll post anymore info as and when I get it.

Frazz

[fdavisson]

I am having the same problem as well... In my Vista 32 bit Ultimate i am a local administrator logged into a domain and my UAC has been turned off... and i still get not bridged network device. I was also running the beta and did not have any issues until i installed the release....

I am going to uninstall and reboot in the local PC as the admin (non-domain) and see if i can install it there...

I also have noticed that on a x32 windows xp pro host, my VM's are taking a very long time to respond. Example, i can hit the microsoft update site with the guest xp pro and it was scan for updated, then after a few minutes I will check the processes to see what is runing and nothing responds. i click on something else, does not respond.... then after a few more minutes all the windows will pop up.... however I am never able to get the windows updated because the connection times out to the update site.

[bezdicek]

Same problem on Vista Business Host however I get a message:

VMNET0 Operation Completed Sucessfully

Virtual Device Ethernet0 will start disconnected

[RobPijpers123]

Try to put the VM in to VMware workstation 5 hardware compatibility mode, you can change this via the menu VM > Upgrade or Change version

[fdavisson]

Still failed for me...

[RobPijpers123]

Uninstall Vmware Workstation, remove all Vmware related registry entries that will remain in HKLM. Then remove all the network adapters in Vista device manager.

Reboot and let Vista discover and configure the netwerk adapters again.

Then install Vmware Workstation again.

[fdavisson]

Well Rob, i did what you suggested and now my whole Vista install is jacked... when I went to remove the network card i told it to keep the drivers... then after i rebooted and pointed to the driver location i am now getting this error message...

This device is not working properly because Widnows canno load the drivers required for this device. (Code 31).

i have tried about 3 different varioations of my NIC Driver and each time i get the same error... I even logged into the local machine as the Administrator with the same problem...

thanks.

[wondertrout]

Having exactly this problem on Vista Home Premium as host with W2K as guest! Have to re-enable the network manually in the guest (via the host NIC icon) to get it to work. Doesn't happen every time but enough to be VERY annoying. Also a range of other problems with WS6 - particularly mouse pointer disappearing and VM guest performance 'stuttering' - see other posts

[mib7vm]

Seems that I have the same problem, host and client with Vista32 Ultimate. Never hat that problem with the Betas oder RCs of VM6.0

But, what always work is vpn with this machine, even when every other network-access (mail, http, https...) didn't work.

When reset the network adapter it works for some times and suddenly it won't work at all, accept vpn.

Kind regards

Micha

[fdavisson]

After I removed my network card in my host Vista box (as Rob suggested) i was not able to re-install my network card. I spend about 3 hours trying different things... I ended up using the system restore that came with Vista (I mean I had 35GB worth of files so it HAD to work) and it worked, I restored my vista back to a snapshot taken on the 28th and my NIC Came back and all is back to normal on Vista...

Now if VMware could get v6.0 to work with my network card and my guest operating systems I will be happy.

But I wanted to report back that my host is back working again.

[fdavisson]

Well after the slow response (and not much help from) support via e-mail. I finally just got frustrated enough to re-load an image of Vista back onto my machine before I even had the beta of v6.0 installed… guess what… all my problems with VMware 6.0 are GONE!

So something must have been left over from the beta install that did not play well with the release. So far I have opened a couple of different VM’s and have not had any problem with any of them.

Thanks for all the help you have given me...

[gehringc]

I have several machines installed with vista. Clean and fresh and I never used the beta and the issue still occur. It seems to be a bug in VMWare 6 for Windows.

Thanks

Christian

[MarkGreene]

I use WS6 build 45731 on Vista Ultimate 64 (host) with RHEL 3 AS & Win2003 Server (guests).

On my sysytem the Automatic Bridging section of the Virtual Network Editor is not seeing either my on board LAN adapter or my PCI-E WLAN adapter.

I can bridge by contolling which VMnet any individual VM connects to and I can of course elect to disable one of my adapters to force automatic bridging to use it.... but its certainly not working as it should.

[jbranc]

I am having the same issue.

installed VMWare Workstation 6-45731 (release) on Vista 64bit

uninstalled (for unrelated reasons).

now my netman service is constantly between 30-50% (dual core cpu)

i looked at windows\inf\setupapi.app.log. its growing GB by GB with this:

cci: NCI: 2 items in the queue

cci: \[NCI BEGIN IQ Notify engine: Action 2 for device ROOT\VMWARE\0000]

cci: \[NCI END IQ Notify engine: Result 0x80070002 for device ROOT\VMWARE\0000]

cci: \[NCI BEGIN IQ Notify engine: Action 2 for device ROOT\VMWARE\0001]

cci: \[NCI END IQ Notify engine: Result 0x80070002 for device ROOT\VMWARE\0001]

repeated endlessly. it will grow indefinitely if i don't stop netman service and remove this file.

reinstalling/uninstalling vmware has no effect. i also can't remove HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\LEGACY_VMNETBRIDGE\0000 b/c i get Permission Denied. attempts at changing perms fail

since i have no restore points, VMWare has essentially destroyed my current build. is there a solution? a better uninstaller?