Windows 10 slow and laggy in VMware Workstation 17

[jraja1]

Hi,

I'm running a guest Windows 10 x64 OS in VMware Workstation 17, guest and host specs are listed below. 

The guest OS is really slow and laggy especially the MS Office apps i.e. Outlook, Word, Teams etc take forever to load to browse through them is painfully slow. I don't see any hardware resource limitations, as more than enough resources are allocated for the VM. Even during heavy use, the CPU/Memory max go up to 50%. 

Apps works perfectly well on the host OS but slow and laggy on the guest.

VMtools is installed, version 12.1.0.20219665. Windows is up-to-date with latest patches, Win10 22H2 19045.2364. 

I've removed all visual enhancement settings from the guest OS but no improvement.

Have lowed the guest OS resolution to 1920x1080 with no improvements. host display is 4K.

###########################

Host

Dell XPS 9500

OS: Windows 10 x64

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10750H CPU @ 2.60GHz 2.59 GHz

RAM: 48 GB

Video: Dedicated 4GB (Nvidia GTX 1650 Ti/ Shared 24 GB Intel UHD

########################

Guest

OS: Windows 10 x64

CPU: 2x6 (12 cores)

RAM: 16 GB

Video: 8GB

########################

Any help will be much appreciated.

[goose2828]

we have the same issues, only on vmware v17.

tried different physical computers, same issue exists.

[GrahamS4]

I'm having the same issue.  20 odd workstations running Windows 10 - been working fine for over a year, no change aside from my company updating from v16 to v17, and now they are all painfully slow to use.

[_Phobos_]

Hi, I just started with win11 host and workstation 17 this year.
I noticed that win10 guests are slow when installed with hardware compatibility = workstation 17!
I ran an excell VBA code with some database queries as a benchmark and it took about 75 seconds to finish.

When I downgraded the HW compatibility of this Win10 guest to workstation 16.2 the same macro took only 9 seconds to finish!!!!
7 times faster on the same guest on the same host only changing the guest Hardware compatibility

So for me I stay working on WS17 with WIN10 guest @ Compatibility = WS16.2!!

I stay away from running a win11 guest (needs HWcomp = WS17) this is also a verry slow combo for me. 
(Even though I speeded all up with regard to disabling Hypervisor mode ULM an all other win11 tweaks.)

[esambell]

I have the same issue, but with a MacBook Pro i9 with 64GB of RAM. Tried all kinds of troubleshooting with different CPU count and RAM, but it's still pretty atrocious.

[GrahamS4]

Thank you _Phobos_ - I have now regained the previous speed by downgrading the hardware compatibility to 16.2.x as you suggested.

I have been trying to stay away from Windows 11 as well - since you also need to encrypt the VM, making any kind of maintenance a royal PITA...

[Alpo52]

Has anyone found a fix for this? My host machine went to sleep over lunch and it is so slow now it wont even shut down the guest. Just upgraded to V17 after using 16.2 on previous PC and using same guest OS with no issues there. It wouldn't finish the shutdown, had to suspend and restart the vm. After restart and vm reboot everything is snappy again. Debating downgrading VMware back to 16.2

[GrahamS4]

You don't have to downgrade VMWare Workstation itself, just the hardware compatibility settings for the VM.

Have you tried that yet?  It's not clear whether you upgraded the VM itself or not?

[DrWhoIs]

same here

but i blame the latest W10 update... (or WS17.0.1 which came approx the same time)...

[ThomasHager]

I have the same problem. Finger off Vmware Workstation this days. I had the Version 12 with Windows 7. All guests in Windows 10 worked fast and efficient. I had to upgrade Windows 7 to 10 and therefore the  Workstation to 17.01. Cost a bit over 200 Dollars including taxes all wasted money. Most of guest are on a CPU load of 100%. The main system on 3 %. Crazy. Memory is 64 GB. Guest at 16 GB, No help, no use anymore. Some guests are running faster. I'm investigating it. Needs a lot of time. Thomas Hager

[Iecb2018]

didnt work for me... Still freaking slow

[mark-reijerkerk]

Same here, see me other reply.

It is hard to imagine that my VM is performing less than an Intel atom 40XX.

On high spec hardware

[mark-reijerkerk]

For the TPM and secure boot of W11 is a reg patch which you must make during install of W11 in VM Workstation 17, no TPM and no secure boot.

In short:

• Start install in VM without TPM and secure boot, no password, boot from standard W11 PRO
• In setup process wait for the language options setup
• press SHIFT F10
• open regedit, yes during install, how strange it may look at first.
• Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup.
• Create a new registry key under Setup and name it LabConfig.
• Within LabConfig, create DWORDs values called BypassTPMCheck and BypassSecureBoot and set each to 1.
• If you also want to bypass the RAM requirement, add a DWORD values for BypassRAMCheck..

Back are all the advantages of cloning, snapping and linking from a VM.

The disadvantadge, you loose your splitting headage after installing W11 in a VM.

See link:

patch win11 reg during install 

[mdpowersslo]

Brand new Dell XPS 9530 with 32GB RAM, VMWare WS 17.03, my Win7x64 guest machine runs beautifully.  However, my Win10x64 guest does not complete booting on ANY hardware compatibility settings I've tried ... not even after letting it run for five hours.

[Apex_caterpilla]

I also have same issue. But I get a temporary remedy.

host: i7-12700, 64GB RAM, 2TB nvme, rtx3060, Win11, VM Ware Workstation 17

guest: 6cores, 16GB RAM, 25GB storage, G.RAM 8GB., Win10 Pro x64.

The VM runs very slow laggy. The host CPU usage (with specific cores) keeps 100%.

I changed the guest resolution from 1920x1080 to 1024x768.

Then everything runs normally. Not sure this is a driver compatibility issues.

[gerhard3]

I have the same issue. Workstation V17, 3 of 4 weeks of 

evaluation time gone and still no working solution.

Host = 8 cores, 3.4 GHz, 16 GB RAM , 48 GB swap partition, all on SSDs,

Debian 12 Linux (Bookworm)  Display automatically chosen from 2540 * 1400 or so.

Guest = Win10 pro X64 current, "upgraded"  from Win7.

It is impossible to install vmware tools for good & ever.  After every reboot

there are complaints "No 3D available - install VMware tools" . Doing so brings

some improvement, still not great. The error beep can be stretched to a 

10 seconds burp sometimes. 

This machine worked OK since Workstation 12, after conversion to Win10

temporariily on the current player. Some 5 weeks ago, the player

turned unstable, developping the ability to even sink Debian 12 with 

OutOfMemory. It felt like a swapping problem, though the disk LED would

light only every few seconds. Just leaving the Windows guest alone for

some hours can provoke problems while the Debian host is still alive

and fast as usual. Compatibilty to V16.2 or 17 makes no difference.

I'm fed up enough that this eval period may mark the end of vmware for me.

[_Phobos_]

Hi Graham,

Thx for the kudo.

If you want to run WIn11 on VM workstation 17. You can do it also by making a virtual machine with Hardware compatiblity 16.2.x!
It When selecting the windows version WIN11 it will tell you that it will not work, but it does work fine for me now for 2 days.

If you want to try it see this post.

https://communities.vmware.com/t5/VMware-Workstation-Pro/Vmware-17-Pro-very-slow-on-Windows-11-22H2/...

I hope I've helped someone with this. Maybe I try to start a new topic to give this more attention.

[Pablo_B]

This helped my VM's too!

[GrahamS4]

I just upgraded to VMWare Workstation 17.5.1 and tried updating my hardware compatibility back to the highest setting.

It's even worse - menus take ages to open, trees take ages to refresh.  You would have thought that .5.1 revisions later someone would have addressed the performance issues?!?!

Nope, back to hardware compatibility for 16.2.

[_Phobos_]

Thx for trying this!

I thought about this also, but I checked the releasenotes and found nothing.
So I didn't bother trying. But I'm grateful someone tried.

so thank you for your time. 😉