Slow console for Win2008-R2 on ESX 4.1?

[rickardnobel]

When using a Windows 2008 R2 guest on an ESX 4.1 host, I get very slow mouse and graphics when attaching to the console of the VM. Typical how it looks without Vmware Tools installed.

However, the tools are installed and updated. I also did try to increase the memory of the graphic card for the VM from 8 MB to 32, but no change.

If accessing through RDP the graphics seems good however. Of course this is the way it should be done, but is it not possible to get good performance from the vSphere Client console too?

[MarkStrong · Accepted solution]

These two VMware KB articles should resolve the problem:

Troubleshooting SVGA drivers installed with VMware Tools on Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 running on ESX 4.0

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1011709

WDDM and XPDM graphics driver support with ESX 4.0 Update 1, Workstation 7.0, and Fusion 3.0

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1016770

VCP4 | MCITP | Master ASE | CCNA

[rickardnobel]

These two VMware KB articles should resolve the problem:

Troubleshooting SVGA drivers installed with VMware Tools on Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 running on ESX 4.0

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1011709

Great, the other driver solved the problem. Thanks a lot.

(A reboot of the guest was necessary however.)

The host is 4.1, I wonder why they are using the incorrect driver by default? It seems to work with Workstation 7.x, I can not remember having any problems with that.

[BuckWeet]

I have this same problem.. The driver is not in the folder on the VM as the article says for 4.0. I only have a single ESXi system running 4.1 so I do not have access to the older driver..

Is there a place to download it?

[pboguszewski]

I am in the same boat. I tried copying the drivers directory from one of my VMs that had it to one that didn't. That did not work. It told me that the current video driver was already the best for my machine. I would love to figure out how to fix this.

[dgrace]

I opened a ticket on this today. Got a callback quickly and the problem resolved.

By  default the video RAM (Edit Settings/Video/Video Ram) is set to 8meg.  With that setting VM Tools will not install the WDDM driver. You need to  increase the ram to 32meg before doing VM Tools. If you don't change the video RAM you can manually change to the driver below.

The WDDM files seem to be missing because they are actually in:

c:\Program Files\Common Files\VMWare\Drivers\wddm_video

Why VMWare put the various drivers in two separate locations boggles me. The Common Files location is listed in the KB but I admittedly missed that.

[golfdud60]

Thanks for the new location under common files.  I just updated my video driver and the problem was resolved.