Guest Isolation Lost After Upgrade to VMWare Workstation Pro 25H2

[HansJoachim Ballin]

After moving to the latest VMWare Workstation Pro the guest isolation is no longer working.

==> VMWare Workstation Pro version 25H2.

I also have installed the embedded "VMware Tools" from VMware UI.

The problem still persist after the tools installation.

Furthermore, I installed the latest tools from download portal.

The problem still persist after the tools installation.

Any idea how I can resolve the puzzle?

Btw. some more insights:

• Copy & paste just works from host to virtual machine, but not vice versa, at the time I'm writing on this article.
• In general, by starting the VM fresh copy & paste works for a while and after few minutes (30 minutes or an hour) it gets lost.

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[Marco_Luvisi]

Hello Hans,

do you have investigate about your AV side ?
Some block network activity.

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[HansJoachim Ballin]

Hello Marco,

AV (Anti-Virus) is not involved on my VM.
On my host I'm using Windows Defender only. It runs smoothly.

But your suggestion gave me an idea. Therefore I created a plain virtualized Windows PC.
Well, also on this PC the problem still persists.

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[James Lin]

After moving to the latest VMWare Workstation Pro the guest isolation is no longer working.

Can you clarify exactly what you're observing and what you expected? For example, are you saying that you have guest isolation enabled (i.e., in VM > Settings > Guest Isolation > "Enable drag and drop" and "Enable copy and paste" are unchecked) but that copy/paste or drag-and-drop are unexpectedly working anyway, or are you saying you have guest isolation disabled but that copy/paste and drag-and-drop are not working?

("Guest isolation lost" and "guest isolation is no longer working" imply that the guest is NOT being isolated.  If, however, you're reporting that copy/paste or drag-and-drop are not working when expected, then it'd be clearer to say that copy/paste and drag-and-drop stopped working.)

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[HansJoachim Ballin]

Hello James,

Oops, my fault. 

With all the tips, tricks and hints from Internet searches I mixed up some terms.

Yes, somewhere in my test cases I used the guest isolation flags in my configuration file "Windows 11 Core24H2.26100.4061.vmx", but both properties were were set to .

isolation.tools.dnd.disable = "FALSE"
isolation.tools.copy.disable = "FALSE"
isolation.tools.paste.disable = "FALSE"

But this hint didn't work as expected and I switched back to UI configuration as the time before.

Currently the UI looks like this.

But the function of copy/paste and/or drag-and-drop are still not working.

My goal is to use the functions of copy/paste and drag-and-drop from inside to outside and vice versa in my VM.

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[HansJoachim Ballin]

Just a today's update.

• Yesterday COPY and PASTE as well as DRAG and DROP was working perfectly the whole day. 
• This morning VMware has been forgotten all good intentions of the perfectly run from former day.

Any new insights from the other end of this internet?

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[Mario Bergmann]

same issue here.

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[Andrius Kulsinskas]

Experiencing same issue.

VMware Workstation is version 25H2 running on Windows 11 host.

Have two guest OS running - one with Win10 and one with Win11. Both randomly stop allowing copy/paste or drag and drop between VM and host. Both happen randomly and can happen independant of each other.

Occasionally, I'll have it working only one way - from host to VM.

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[Henny vH]

For me the same. I'll have it working only one way - from host to VM.

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[HansJoachim Ballin]

I'm notauthorized to reply on this thread: 25H2 Copy/paste works at first, then stops

Unfortunately, your approach did not solve the problem.

Well, then I followed your approach in meet the issue. I enabled the  "Clipboard history" and restarted the host, then I disabled the  "Clipboard history" and restarted the host again. The problem still persists.

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