VMware Workstation 15 Pro 15.5.7 | Windows 11 Ethernet Adapter

[MattyT123]

Hey guys, 

This is driving me a little nuts. Spent the last 3 hours trying to figure this out and I'm stuck.

I'm running a Windows 11 22H2 VM guest OS through VMware Workstation 15 Pro 15.5.7 and I can't for the life of me get the ethernet adapter on the VM functioning and thus have no network / internet connectivity. Within Device Manager, the system is reporting that there is no available driver for the ethernet adapter. I downloaded, injected into ISO and then installed VMware-Tools-windows-12.3.5-22544099 upon the VM and this has made no difference. 

I've searched extensively for 'vmxnet3 drivers for Windows 11' and all I can find are articles indicating the driver will be available in future Windows updates. 

Any direction, pointers or suggestions here would be greatly appreciated. 

Thank you. 

[RDPetruska]

Have you tried the default e1000 instead of the VMware emulated vmxnet?  I'm pretty sure Win11 is not a supported guest for Workstation 15, so the VMware Tools vmxnet one may not work.

[bluefirestorm]

If I am not mistaken, there is no "e1000" virtual Intel PRO adapter drivers for Windows 11 fresh install; unless the VM was upgraded from an existing Windows 10 VM with e1000 already installed.

Unless the vmx configuration entry ethernet0.virtualDev was edited (presumably prior to encryption for the TPM requirement) to either e1000e (virtual Intel 82574L) or vmxnet3 prior to fresh install of Windows 11 OS on the VM, that is likely the problem. For a modern VM, e1000e or vmxnet3 is really the way to go. The virtual e1000 is a virtual PCI device while the e1000e and vmxnet3 are virtual PCIe devices.

Historically, vmxnet3 driver comes from VMware Tools; while the e1000 and e1000e drivers comes from the OS. But it has been a number of years now since Windows Update would offer updates for VMware Tools drivers like VMware SVGA driver and vmxnet3 adapter. Not sure if the vmxnet3 adapter is available "in-box" with Windows 10/11 now. Ubuntu 22.04 seems to have it available "in-box" (i.e. boot up Ubuntu LiveCD with vmxnet3 adapter and network access is fine).

[MattyT123 · Accepted solution]

Hey guys - I managed to resolve this (by luck more than anything else). I removed the network adapter and added a new adapter for the guest VM. As soon as I did this, I had an operational 'NAT' interface. To be fair - I should have attempted this far sooner. Thank you guys for responding to my query. 

[tboy48]

Can you explain in step..Im new and same thing happen to me