VMWARE Bridge Protocol is missing on Windows 10 machine (version 1709)

[Brachinus]

I have several users that are missing the VMWARE bridge protocol after their machines were upgraded to windows 10 1709.  I have tried multiple versions of vmware workstation, including the latest release with the same result.  I have noticed this has been happening to a lot of people, but i have not come across any fixes that corrected the problem.  I have tried to manually install it, but got the following error message:

could not add the requested feature.  the error is:  Access is denied.

Has any encountered this and has a solution?

[patboyBell]

Same here with Windows 10 1809 (Insider)

[yanw]

Uninstall Workstation and install it again make bridge protocal back?

[tkoeferli]

Hello,

same problem here (version 1809 insider).

After update 15.0.0 to 15.0.1 no netbridge

I uninstalled Workstation, still same problem.

After uninstalling WS again, I had to manually remove the driver netbridge.

In an elevated Powershell

First find the oem<xx>.inf

pnputil /enum-drivers | Out-File oem_all.txt

then in oem_all.txt find netbridge

in my case it's oem18.inf

Ver÷ffentlichter Name:	oem18.inf
Originalname:	netbridge.inf
Anbietername:	VMware, Inc.
Klassenname:	Netzwerkdienst
Klassen-GUID:	{4d36e974-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}
Treiberversion:	09/18/2018 14.0.0.1
Name des Signaturgebers:	Microsoft Windows Hardware Compatibility Publisher

then use

pnputil /delete-driver oem18.inf

?????????

It seems updating WS tries reinstalling the driver, which fails.

It seems that the uninstaller did not remove the driver correctly, so it could'nt be installed anymore.

At least in my case this was true.

?????????

[tramp20]

Thank for your tip to delete the old oemxx.inf.

This seems to help to install vmnetbridge.

I had this problem only on Windows 10 19H1, 1809 was fine.

[TerryJJ]

Thank you, this solved my issue!  This has been driving me mad, the problem only appeared since I upgraded from Workstation Pro 15.0 to 15.0.2

Most fixes revolved around restoring defaults in the Virtual Network Editor, uninstalling Kaspersky AV (if you had it installed) or reinstalling Workstation.

For reference I'm currently on Windows 10 1809, build 18277.1000 (Insider fast release)

[tkoeferli]

Yes!

I'm on insider too! I had the issue with build 18277 and 18282.

Since these builds are'nt supported yet as WS Host, we have to wait for the official solution.

Have a nice day!

[Tymarand]

I had to sign in just to say "THANK YOU!!!" to tkoeferli​.

I was going CRAZY trying to figure out what MSFT broke again, within my Windows 10 Insider install.  This saved my SANITY.

Again, thank you tkoeferli... your solution is much appreciated.

Respectfully,

Christopher R.