WS 12 Pro reports "Unable to open kernel device ‘\\.Global\vmx86’" error too frequently!

[DmitryBond]

Hi.

During last 2 weeks I reinstalled VmWare Workstation 12 Pro 4 times on my Windows 10 PC! That is too much!

Almost every Windows update or software install causing VmWare fail to start VM.

Last week I installed Office 365, restarted PC, tried to start VM, got that error:

Unable to open kernel device ‘\\.Global\vmx86’: The system cannot find the file specified. Did you reboot after installing VmWare Workstation?

Failed to initialize monitor device.

Then few days after Windows 10 installed some updates, I restarted PC, tried to start VM and got that error again.

Today I installed SQL Server 2014 Management Studio and got that error again.

In all that cases only one solution is possible - complete uninstall VmWare Workstation 12 and then install it again.

I tried to apply [Repair] in VmWare installer - that did not helped.

So, for sure - there is some problem in latest VmWare Workstation.

Could you please check?

Note: my PC is Intel Core i5-4790K, MSI Z87 mainboard, 16Gb RAM, SSD 500Gb + HDD 1Tb.

This January I made a clean install of Windows 7 Ultimate x64 and then clicked [Upgrade to Windows 10].

Then I bought VmWare Workstation 12 and installed there. Tried to work but facing mentioned error too frequently.

Regards,
Dmitry.

[DmitryBond]

Found description of similar problem here - Unable to open kernel device "\\.\Global\vmx86": The system cannot find the file

As I can see in my case this helps:

    net start vmx86

However it is still an option question - why "vmx86" stopped too frequently? It seems there are no related error messaged in Windows events log...

[AdEnVoice]

Hi,

Run the command prompt in elevated mode (run as administrator)

Go to the installed folder of vmware. (In my case it is installed in Program Files (x86)\vmware\vmware workstation)

enter the following command

net start vmx86

It worked for me.

Thanks

Adnan

[cbiero]

Hi, maybe the service didn't start sometimes.

Check-out this : VmWare WorkStation 10.0.7 and Windows 10 Unable to Run VM

I had the same issue right after upgrading to W10 ... ok but this was for Workstation 11.1.3.

Give a try to set in the recovery tab of "VMware Authorization Service" (VMAuthdService), a restart of the service on the first fail after 2 min.

No more issue for me !

(but you question is still opened ... in the background).

Regards