I have the same issue with Windows 10 host (latest 21H2, x64, 32GB RAM, i9) and VMware Workstation. VMs used are Windows 7 Pro (x64), Windows 10 Pro (x64) and Windows 11 Pro (x64).
The problem first occurred after I upgraded to Workstation Pro 16. It never happened with older Workstation Pro 15 or earlier versions on the same host with the same VMs.
What I've tried so far to find a workaround:
- Deactivating hardware acceleration and setting fixed screen resolution -> It still happens.
- Changing the CPU cores to 1 cpu & 1 core, 1 cpu & multi-core, multiple cpus & 1 core -> It still happens.
- Upgrading some of my VMs from Win 7 to Win 10 to Win 11 -> It happens with all of these Windows versions the same.
- Upgrading and downgrading to try all the 16.x versions up to 16.2.3 -> The problem persists with all 16.x versions.
- Manually upgrading the VMware Tools up to current 12.0.0 -> The problem persists with all of the different VMware Tools versions.
- Fully Setting up new, clean VMs with Windows 10 x64 and Windows 11 x64 -> It still happens.
- Set shared folders to the antivirus ignore list in either the host or the guest AV tool (so that only one AV checks the shared folder contents to make sure there is no overlapping av monitoring) -> It still happens.
- Tried Windows Defender and different third-party AV tools -> It still happens with either of them (Windows Defender, Bitdefender, Comodo).
- Checked host OS with sfc /scannow -> No problems on host system.
- Checked that none of the shared folders overlap -> It still happens although no overlapping shared folders.
- I even get the same BSOD, if I completely deactivate shared folders in VMware and instead mount the according folders as network drive inside my VMs (i.e. access via network instead of VMware shared folders).
As of now, there seems to be NO working workaround to this problem. Not having shared folders or at least something equivalent that allows to access folders on the host is not acceptable and for sure not to be considered as a "solution" to this problem.
I'm tired of auto-rebooting VMs all the time and wasting all this time to no avail. I need to share folders between host and guest! Vmware Workstation is not usable for me any longer as long as this problem persists.
I cannot believe that VMware isn't aware of this massive problem. And still they did neither confirm nor fix this problem in all the updates that came out since Workstation 16.0.0.
