Workstation Pro 17 freezing

[thomasft]

I'm having problems when using VMware Workstation on a Windows 11 host with a Windows 10 guest. The guest machine seemingly works for inconsistent periods of time before it freezes, no amount of clicking or keyboard strokes will return to my host OS. The freezing locks up both the guest and host OS and the system clocks remain static. NumLock status doesn't change when pressed either. The only way out from the problem is a hard reset.

Would anyone have any idea where to start? Fresh install of Windows 11 has not remedied the problem and is occurring on a relatively new piece of hardware.

Host information:

Processor 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-12700H 2.30 GHz
Installed RAM 24.0 GB (23.7 GB usable)
Windows 11 Business 22H2

Virtual machine:

Memory: 8GB
Processors: 1
Processor cores: 6
Windows 10 Pro

Happy to provide any log files that may help but can't seem to find any specific to the crashing session.

[tom0021]

Same on my system:

i9-13900K with 32GB Ram, Windows 11 Pro 64Bit (10.0, Build 22621)

When it starts the VM gets slower and slower. The host is inaccessible. You can Start Taskamanger, but it shows no content. Same for cmd, powershell, ... Nothing works anymore. Time is frozen.

Eventlog shows nothing usable.

Some minutes later the host itself is frozen too. You have to switch it off.

[Cnyster]

I have this issue as well...  it has been happening for about a month and I wasn't sure what was causing it. Until today it occurred  just as I was starting a guest windows 10 on my windows 11 host. It dawned on me that each time the host freezes  I was in a Running VM

VMware Workstation 17Pro 17.0.2 build 21581411

Windows 11 Pro 64 Bit Build (22621.2361) 10.0.22621

[Cnyster]

Good day.  I believe  I have solved the issue and it does not seem to be related to VMware Workstation.

For those that may run across this, you might want to see if your computer / system has 2 integrated video platforms.

Mine has Nvidia as well as Intel  ARC graphics.  The idea is  for heavy duty gaming  the system is supposed to use Nvidia and for lighter tasks the system is supposed to use Intel. 

It seems when the system is trying to switch to the Intel card the system would freeze. 

So far  disabling the Intel ARC  graphics in the  device manager has solved the issue.

 

I hope this helps people scratching their head as I was.

[Carel Wentzel]

Yeah i've been scratching my head on this one and will give it a try and report back.

[Carel Wentzel]

Instead of disabling the Intel GPU you can set it in Graphic preferences

[mleighfield]

I have followed your steps and I will update the thread with my findings...

Thanks a lot,

Mark

[mleighfield]

Unfortunately, still a similar problem although I seem to be able to suspend and resume successfully which is better if not still very very inconvenient.

Thanks 

Mark.

[VMware Community Member]

When I downloaded VM Workstation 17 Pro and booted up a VM my host PC would freeze completely. I tried everything Ensuring Virtual Based Security was disabled. Ensuring the VM wasn't taking up more resources than my host pc had by lowering CPU cores, RAM, and setting the VM to use reserve RAM. Checked the BIOS setting on my PC to ensure Virtualization capabilities were enabled. Disabled Hyper-V virtualization in my windows features settings. Enabled Virtualization support in my windows features settings. Looked through Event viewer when the crashed happened to see any relevant logs. Went into the registry to ensure the right accounts had privilege's under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT> CSLID. Ensured there were now other disk or VMs in my files maybe eating up resources. After doing all that and a bit more my PC would still freeze. I ended up downgrading to VM Workstation 16 and my VM spun up just fine, no freezing. I've gone through so many forums. Hopefully this comment can help a bit for those with the same issue.

[shelterx]

This seems to be an issue with VMWare workstation 17.4/17.5.1  (might even be earlier than that).
Sometimes my Windows 11 VM just freezes. It happens if i run the guest both under Windows and Linux, so it's not Windows specific. There's a thread on reddit about this too.

[acsc_se]

I have the same issue. Windows 11 freezes. It will come back in less than a minute but occurs over and over again.