Strange VM problem with connecting to network

[En3D]

I have a Windows 2003 Server that was P2V'd months ago. It was working fine. Last week I finished my upgrade from ESX 3.0.2 to 3.5u3.

This server was still working fine and I decided to update the VMWare tools. Now I can't get it to connect to the network. I've uninstalled VMWare tools, unchecked/check the NIC in VMWare tools.

Here is the strange part, I have a continuous ping going and the it does reply but only when the server is going the Window startup process. It only replies for a few seconds and stops once the Windows startup splash screen is a few seconds in the "applying computer settings" part.

All of the other VM/guest OSs are working fine.

Any ideas?

[SuryaVMware]

Try remove the NIC and scan for new hardware from with in the Guest OS, Windows 2003, Once the NIC is recognised you will have to re-assign the ip-address. I am sure this is something to do with the Ghost adapter that has come with P2V and upgrading VMware tools, which didn't pick up the NIC correctly.

Let me know if this helps.

-Surya

[Troy_Clavell]

you can try to update the NIC drivers by pointing them to C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools\Drivers\vmxnet

[En3D]

No luck with either suggestions. I've also gone and removed all hidden NICs.

[NTurnbull]

Have you tried disconnecting the vnic from the vm, boot vm, device manager and remove all nics including hidden adaptors, reboot, check device manager, shutdown, enable vnic on vm and boot?

Thanks,

Neil

[RicardoAugusto]

Did you try to stop the service "IPSEC" ?

Sometime ago I had a similar problem with a server (not virtual) and it was a corrupted ipsec policy.

Ricardo

[gambit2010]

Hi All,

Never posted before, but I have taken lots of knowledge from other users, so thought it was time to give back.

I found the problem to be due to IPSEC corrupting after I had preformed an upgrade of VMtools. You can set the IPSEC service to startup - disabled, this will allow the server to communicate via IP. If the first part doesn't work you can go to regedit: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Current\ControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters and click on ReservedPorts there should be 3343-3343 already there, you need to add above them 1433-1434 (this is depending on the apps you have running on the machine) the first part of disabling the IPSEC service should work.

Hope this helps

Gambit

[NTurnbull]

Strangely enough I had this problem last week, in the event log it said that the IPSEC service could not start due to a file not found error. I found this article on the MS KB however when I went through it the registry entries didn't exist. It was the last part of the KB that helped me :

Rebuild a new local policy store. To do this, Click Start, click Run, type regsvr32 polstore.dll in the Open box, and then click OK.

Ran the command and the IPSEC service started fine and the server came ouf of blocking mode

Thanks,

Neil

[gambit2010]

Just tried it and that solution works brilliantly. Thanks Neil,