VmWare 17.6 NAT network connection drops on Windows 11 23H2 host machine

[Philipp Seifert]

We run VmWare Workstation Pro 17.6 on host laptop with Windows 11 23H2 installed. We need to run NAT network for the VMs on the hosts Wifi. The guest VM is Windows 10 and it has the VmWare Tools for 17.6 installed inside the VM.

The NAT network on the laptops Wifi is unstable and disconnects every 30s for 2min or so. So the network connection inside the VM completely drops and no network at all is available inside the VM. The guests Windows 10 also shows not network connection in the bottom rights corner. After 2min the NAT network seems to recover for another 30s and drops again for 2min. or so. After some research in other forums there is a Windows Service on the host machine called "VMware NAT service". Restarting the service immediately recovers the NAT network inside the VM, but then the NAT network connection drops again after 30s or so.

A few more troubleshooting points:
- Bridged network seems to be more stable (no connection drops observed), but is not an option in our setup
- Cable network and NAT seems to be stable
- Latest Intel Wifi driver installed
- Everything worked fine on the very same (phyiscal) host machine for Windows 10 OS, VmWare 17.5 and Wifi. The problems started with upgrade to Win11 23H3 (no NAT on Wifi at all possible because there was not network in the VM -> network disconnected and / or "cable unplugged" of the virtual network device) and with VmWare 17.6 at least we get some network, but it drops after 30s
- network is stable on the host laptop with wifi at all times
- the same connection drop is observed in two different VMs, so it seems that the problem is rooted in VmWare of the host machine and not inside the VM

The goal is to get NAT stable with no connection drops for VmWare 17.6 on host machine running Windws 11 23H2 and VMs running Windows 10 22H2.

Any ideas?

[Kelvin Schmidt]

Hi Philipp,

This is unfortunately not new - also a problem in 17.5.xx. as have been posted many times in the forum, but not reacted on.

We are experiencing this on a daily basis. With both windows 10 and 11 as host systemes. With Windows 10 and Win2022 server as client systems.  With a lot of different hardware laptops and on our student PC's where they have many kinds of setups in relation to antivirus etc.

It is reallly, really annoying to loose connection so many times.

The work arounds are either restart the "VMware NAT service" while the client is still running.

Or when sometimes the above not possible, then we have to turn off the client and use the VMware Network editor and reset the Network cards to default.

I agree the Bridged connection is more stable, but we would really like the NAT to work as it did in the earlier versions of VMware before 17.5.xx

[Geert Verstrepen]

I'm also using VMware workstation Pro for student labs and the NAT network is really needed to create an environment with different VM's that can communicate between the and have internet access.
Situation is very unstable. Sometimes it works, somtimes it doesn't. Only restarting nat or dhcp service seems not to help. Sometime is works in a linux VM to request a new dhcp lease, but not always...
At home on a wired network it seems stable.
It is freaking me out... Somone foun a solution ?

[Philipp Seifert]

We have not found solution yet and went to NAT + wired connection where possible. All colleagues that must have NAT + Wifi are now using VirtualBox where NAT on Wifi is stable.