VMWare 25H2

[kasper]

I did a fresh install of my host (WS2025) and VMWare 2025H2.   I then upgraded my guests (Windows 11/Ubuntu/ws2022/etc).

The graphics are now F'd.   In particular the taskbars and windows within the guest appear with little dots.    This all goes away

when I switch screens in the VMWare gui.

VMWare 2025H2 in my humble opinion is NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME.

I have gone through several iterations of backing out of Broadcom major updates to Workstation.  I realize there are many hardware/software environments.   I was foolish enough to go with a new major change.   I appreciate the product is freeware and that presents some challenges.   But I am not here to report and troubleshoot issues on my time.   I need to step away from this until the 'dusk clears'.

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[Guillaume Malignon]

Absolutely correct. It is simply unusable.

I use Workstation 17.6.4 with Windows 11 as the host and Windows Server 2022 as guest.

I updated to 25H2 and what a disaster!

1) When in full screen mode the taskbar on top disappears (and doesn't appear even putting the mouse cursor over the top), so you can't easily switch between host and guest.

2) The screen in the guest OS becomes super bright and screws up the brightness of the host OS which becomes way too dim, needing a reboot.

3) The entire VM just freezes out of nowhere. 

4) Copy and Paste between host and guest stops working.

5) Workstation Pro starts using more and more CPU as time goes by.

I'm sure there are more issues but I just stopped using it.

I simply uninstalled it and installed VMWare 17.6.4

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[James Lin]

1) When in full screen mode the taskbar on top disappears (and doesn't appear even putting the mouse cursor over the top), so you can't easily switch between host and guest.

Other people have reported that in https://community.broadcom.com/vmware-cloud-foundation/discussion/am-i-doing-something-wrong-or-is-vmware-workstation-2025h2-an-absolute-trash

2) The screen in the guest OS becomes super bright and screws up the brightness of the host OS which becomes way too dim, needing a reboot.

That doesn't make any sense.  VMware Workstation does not control monitor brightness (and even if it did, changes to brightness wouldn't affect different the guest and host independently.  Are you sure that you don't have something else running on your host (e.g. f.lux or something similar) that is causing that?

5) Workstation Pro starts using

more and more CPU as time goes by.

Exactly which process?  vmware.exe?  vmware-vmx.exe?  mksSandbox.exe?

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[Guillaume Malignon]

Somehow the new version does mess up the display brightness.

The new version does it every time, it's really weird. 

The guest VM is very bright and the Host OS (windows 11) display becomes very dim and stays dim until rebooting it.

No it's obviously not the monitor brightness, it has to do with the display drivers. 

Also I have an HDR monitor with HDR enabled in Windows, so that could be why.

Regardless, the previous version worked fine.

What bothers me is that all these issues are noticeable within minutes of using the software, do you guys test the software at all before releasing it???

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[XPLO1T]

That doesn't make any sense.  VMware Workstation does not control monitor brightness (and even if it did, changes to brightness wouldn't affect different the guest and host independe

ntly.  Are you sure that you don't have something else running on your host (e.g. f.lux or something similar) that is causing that?

z

I know right, and yet it also happens to me on Windows 11 25H2. Forget to report it in the other thread as another issue being experienced.

When the VM goes full screen (and top taskbar disappears and cant be brought back) my screen goes really bright (almost like HDR is on or something on the monitor).  I can get it to revert brightness when I manage to make the top taskbar stick (or when it feels like it exits the fake "exclusive mode" that it feels like it enters.

Also a byproduct of this, I use the Windows virtual desktops, and keep VMWare on the 2nd virtual desktop, however when this bug triggers, if I switch virtual desktops, the VM stays on both the 2nd virtual desktop, but also goes over the top of everything on the 1st virtual desktop preventing me from using the 1st virtual desktop...

I will try collect logs later as per your request to fix it as its quite a dramatic issue being encountered.

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[Guillaume Malignon]

Yes, that is what is happening. 

I'm running Windows 11 25H2 (so many people get confused with the new VMWare Workstation version name) and have HDR on.

I was hoping for a better feedback than "VMware Workstation does not control monitor brightness".

I'm a programmer and I know that but this is what's happening, yet another bug that didn't exist in the previous version.

Also the display drivers can control brightness, you should be aware of that, that's what happens with HDR.

Even worse, in my case, the Host OS' display brightness is all messed up after running the new version of VW, requiring a reboot.

Probably disabling HDR in Windows might fix the issue temporarily but the point is that it's a new bug.

This would all be fine if the software was released as beta but it isn't.

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[Shibdas Bandyopadhyay]

What happens if you turn off Vulkan presentation, mks.enableVulkanPresentation=False?

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[Scott Towers]

@Shibdas Bandyopadhyay appalling answer, instead of suggesting to the developers to fix this you suggest to fudge around with the vmx fill to get it to work, may be.

This update on a POS and should be taken off the website, replaced by a new version when you guys can be bothered to fix all the issues and then test before releasing it for customers.

Broadcom needs to get their Butt in gear!

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[James Lin]

Scott, Shibdas is one of the developers.  We do intend to fix this, and nobody is suggesting otherwise.  The request to try mks.enableVulkanPresentation=False is to help us narrow down the problem (and possibly to help you and other people work around the problem until it's properly fixed).

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[XPLO1T]

What happens if you turn off Vulkan presentation, mks.enableVulkanPresentation=False?

Resolved it for me, but setting this causes other issues which appear to be worse for me. VM Display appearing to be frozen, and significantly worse display/refresh performance.

Running a Triple 4K Monitor setup here (3840x2160), HDR disabled, 150% Scale. Top of the line hardware with all hardware updated:

Ryzen 9950X3D

• Nvidia 5090
• 96GB RAM
• etc

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[Shibdas Bandyopadhyay]

> but setting this causes other issues which appear to be worse for me

The issues you are hitting are the reason we shipped vulkan presentation this year. So without that config option (i.e. without mks.enableVulkanPresentation=FALSE) does overly bright guest change if you turn on/off HDR?

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[XPLO1T]

The issues you are hitting are the reason we shipped vulkan presentation this year. So without that config option (i.e. without mks.enableVulkanPresentation=FALSE) does overly bright guest change if you turn on/off HDR?

Ive shared the logs/screenshots and even a video to James Lin in the other thread here: https://community.broadcom.com/vmware-cloud-foundation/discussion/am-i-doing-something-wrong-or-is-vmware-workstation-2025h2-an-absolute-trash?ReplyInline=1ca2c297-535f-4128-b392-f41013f9e6c3

I have HDR disabled on my system (even though my monitors support HDR) as I hate the brightness changing without my permission, so with VulkanPresentation ON, it seems this is being overridden somehow (maybe in Nvidia driver settings?) and HDR (or something like HDR) is enabled when I am in a bugged mode where I cant select the top toolbar. When I can exit this "Exclusive Mode" that I never entered or whatever mode it is in, the brightness reverts to normal.

With VulkanPresentation OFF, the issue never triggers, including the other issues I am experiencing such as Workstation escaping its Windows Virtual Desktop and displaying over the top of other Virtual Desktops.

Effectively when in this bugged ultra bright, VD escaping mode, you cannot do anything useful with the PC other than exiting Workstation, as the Windows Virtual Desktops are so broken, you cant get any work done, either within Workstation, or outside of it. 

Let me know if you need any more assistance. But I hope the logs/screenshots/video provided demonstrate the issue fully.

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[Guillaume Malignon]

I know it's been a long time but I finally Installed Workstation Pro 25H2u1 and the bug is still there.

Adding the mks.enableVulkanPresentation=FALSE to the preferences.ini file does fix the brightness problem and also the status bar now showing in full screen mode.

I'm on windows 11 Pro build 26300.7939.

I tried changing settings in the NVidia drivers, disabling HDR, nothing works but adding that line does work.

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[James Lin]

I should clarify exactly what we did in Workstation 25H2u1 to partially address this.  We're still investigating the HDR and full screen toolbar problems (these issues seem specific to certain hardware and software configurations, so we have difficulty reproducing them internally), but as a workaround in 25H2u1, we tied the Vulkan and DirectX 12 presentations to the Edit > Preferences > Display > "Allow hardware acceleration for all virtual consoles" checkbox.  If that checkbox is checked, then you will still encounter those above bugs.  If that checkbox is unchecked, that is equivalent to setting mks.enableVulkanPresentation=FALSE (along with some other settings).

Do you have that checkbox checked?

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[Guillaume Malignon]

I do have that checkbox checked.

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[XPLO1T]

I should clarify exactly what we did in Workstation 25H2u1 to partially address this.  We're still investigating the HDR and full screen toolbar problems (these issues seem specific to certain hardware and software configurations, so we have difficulty reproducing them internally), but as a workaround in 25H2u1, we tied the Vulkan and DirectX 12 presentations to the Edit > Preferences > Display > "Allow hardware acceleration for all virtual consoles" checkbox.  If that checkbox is checked, then you will still encounter those above bugs.  If that checkbox is unchecked, that is equivalent to setting mks.enableVulkanPresentation=FALSE (along with some other settings).

Do you have that checkbox checked?

Interesting. I read the release notes for 25H2 U1 very closely hoping to see a fix for the Full Screen/HDR bug, but I didnt see anything so wad dreading the issue not being resolved for me.

Since the update, I have confirmed I have "Edit > Preferences > Display > "Allow hardware acceleration for all virtual consoles" unchecked.

But I have all the below in my VMX file for 2 VM's, and since updating to 25H2 U1, my issues have disappeared with the full screen/HDR bug, and I also had random whole system lockup/crashes every 24-48hrs, which also seem to have disappeared... 

gui.viewModeAtPowerOn = "fullscreen"                                #Added
mks.enableVulkanPresentation = "TRUE"                                 #Added
mks.enableVulkanRenderer = "TRUE"                                     #Added
mks.vk.syncPerEndFrame = "TRUE"                                        #Added
mks.enableDX12Renderer = "TRUE"                                     #Added
mks.dx12.syncPerEndFrame = "TRUE"                                    #Added

Workstation for me, right now, os rock solid again, with excellent 3D performance and stability. 

The above seems to conflict that the underlying issue doesnt appear resolved from a Broadcom perspective, but from a user experience perspective, I havent had it reoccur since upgrading to 25H2 U1.

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[James Lin]

It's mentioned in the release notes, under "Vulkan presentation mode might cause several bugs in some Windows host hardware configurations".

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[XPLO1T]

It's mentioned in the release notes, under "Vulkan presentation mode might cause several bugs in some Windows host hardware configurations".

Thanks James.

Does the VMX configuration file items I mention above override the "Edit > Preferences > Display > "Allow hardware acceleration for all virtual consoles" checkbox? If they do not, that would explain why my HDR/Full Screen bug issue has disappeared, even though the underlying bug appears to still exist according to your statement. I also then can't explain the significantly better graphics performance than what I was getting previously when running under DX11 mode.

If they do override the checkbox, then I cant explain why the HDR/Full Screen bug has disappeared.

I haven't really changed any config since the update to 25H2 U1 other than a couple recent Nvidia driver updates... 

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[Shibdas Bandyopadhyay]

If you can upload the VMware.log and mksSandbox.log perhaps with and without the 25H2U1 that will be great. We don't yet understand the reason for those HDR/full screen bugs as with very similar system we were not able to reproduce this in house. So a.config where the bug occurs and one where it doesn't is of great help. 

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[James Lin]

Unchecking the "Allow hardware acceleration for all virtual consoles" checkbox will override the mks.enableVulkanPresentation and mks.enableDX12Presentation configuration options.  If the checkbox is checked, those configuration options will be honored.

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[Guillaume Malignon]

If that helps, this is my PC's specs:

AMD Ryzen 9 9900X 12-Core Processor             (4.40 GHz)

RAM 64.0 GB (61.6 GB usable)

Windows 11 Pro 26300.7939

Nvidia 5070 ti GPU (16 GB of VRAM)

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[kasper]

Installed 25H2 U1.   Most if not all issues fixed.   Thank you for the update. 

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[Rivaldo Kurbah]

this 25H2 Vmware is not working properly with me as well. Mouse Curser is disappearing inside the Machine...I tried to install the Vm tools but still it didn't work. how to fix it

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[James Lin]

@Rivaldo Kurbah If you want help, please provide some details.  What is your host OS?  What is your guest OS?  Is your virtual machine using the latest virtual hardware version?  Have you tried VMware Workstation 25H2u1 instead?

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[Rivaldo Kurbah]

Thank you, my Host OS is Windows 11, my quest OS is Kali Linux, yes my Vmware is the Workstation 25H2u1

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[James Lin]

That seems to be a common problem with Kali Linux.  As I mentioned, please upgrade the virtual hardware of your VM (VM > Manage > Change Hardware Compatibility).

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[George Paul]

I have a similar issue. Running Ubuntu 24.04 or Windows 11 on my Windows 11 Pro machine with a HDR display, anything that is white appears to be at 100% brightness of the monitor regardless of any setting. Enabling mks.enableVulkanPresentation=False does solve the issue for Ubuntu, I didnt test the Windows VMs yet with this fix as I deleted them due to this issue.

I did use Workstation, on this same setup before and it ran completely fine. I uninstalled it and didnt use it a for a while, and just installed it again today when I ran into this issue, and after some googling this thread.

Host : Windows 11 Pro 25H2
VM : Windows 11 Pro 24H2/25H2 / Ubuntu 24.04
Workstation Version : VMware Workstation 25H2u1  25.0.1.25219725
All VMs were created on this version of VMWare as this is a new install. 

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[James Lin]

George, instead of manually setting mks.enableVulkanPresentation = "FALSE", you can use VMware Workstation 25H2u1 with Edit > Preferences > Display > Graphics > "Allow hardware acceleration for all virtual machine consoles" unchecked.

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[George Paul]

I will try that on the next VM, in terms of performance is there any difference or are both achieving the same thing?

Also is this something that will be fixed? It wasn't an issue on the previous versions of Workstation as far as I know.

[James Lin]

in terms of performance is there any difference or are both achieving the same thing?

Unchecking "Allow hardware acceleration for all virtual machine consoles" disables some other presentation modes that have known problems in addition to the Vulkan presentation mode.  My understanding is that performance can be worse, but probably not significantly.

Also is this something that will be fixed? It wasn't an issue on the previous versions of Workstation as far as I know.

Yes, we'd still like to fix it.  This wasn't an issue in previous versions of VMware Workstation because the Vulkan presentation mode was not enabled by default.  So in that regard, turning it off shouldn't make performance any worse than in those previous versions.

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[Shibdas Bandyopadhyay]

We have seen reports of this issue in the field before but we couldn't reproduce this in house. We tried a couple of things with vulkan but that didn't work as expected. The perf with the config option will be a little off but it shouldn't be noticeable unless you are benchmarking or running some games.

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[George Paul]

Its hard to show this issue as taking a screenshot shows both whites the same. But a full white filled paint window next to the VM appears to be like 10x dimmer. It seems to be going to 100% peak brightness of the display. I tried with Windows and Ubuntu just now and both have the same issue. Turning off Accelarate 3D Graphics also does solve it.

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[Steve Costaras]

Wouldn't that then also affect VM's that are hosted on ESXI but when I use workstation pro as the remote head?   

I am also in the same boat here w/ 25H2, 25H2u1 under windows server 2022 & server 2025 as hosts where when it uses the vulkan presentation backend I get a lot of issues (command bar disappears when in full screen, mouse issues, etc.   Personally I would love to use the vulkan presentation under windows as when done right it's more efficient, but will be falling back to 17.6.4 (which is what I was running, just updated to 25h2u1 over the weekend) due to too many issues.

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[James Lin]

Wouldn't that then also affect VM's that are hosted on ESXI but when I use workstation pro as the remote head?   

I think so, but I don't think that's usually going to be a bottleneck for remote VMs.

I am also in the same boat here w/ 25H2, 25H2u1 under windows server 2022 & server 2025 as hosts where when it uses the vulkan presentation backend I get a lot of issues (command bar disappears when in full screen, mouse issues, etc.   Personally I would love to use the vulkan presentation under windows as when done right it's more efficient, but will be falling back to 17.6.4 (which is what I was running, just updated to 25h2u1 over the weekend) due to too many issues.

Can you clarify what other issues are blocking you?  Workstation 17.6.4 has quite a number of other problems that were fixed in 25H2 and later, and it wasn't using the Vulkan presentation anyway, so I think graphics performance should be about the same.

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[Steve Costaras]

Basically it's a general usability issue. 

Even with setting mks.enableVulkanPresentation = "FALSE" when I get into guest VM's in full screen mode there are what appear to be video driver 'glitches' (screen would go blank for a second similar to what you would expect if a display input was being swapped on a monitor)  This happens with tools versions 12.5.4 and 13.0.10;  hassle to modify each *.vmx (as I don't want to do it globally) that is an issue (non gui guests for example I haven't had an issue with);  more inconsistent guest performance with guests (hardware versions 17-20) (aside from the graphics update in hw version 20 which was nice and supported with v17.5.x, I am seeing more 'stutters', application freezes (brief), and what could be ?scheduling? related issues?   

My desktop hardware is older dell R730/R740 servers as well as supermicro X10/X11 dual cpu boards running mainly windows server 2022 standard on the desktop (I mainly just run windows at the host level to launch workstation and keep many VM's running in there).  At the host I have disabled HT/SMT; disabled C-States > C1E; am always in performance mode; page file disabled;reserve all memory to guests;  and set mainMem.useNamedFile = "FALSE".  Host is running on a RAID-10 of sas ssd's.  Main point is to cut down on latency as I run many VM's at the same time. 

Anyway, came from Workstation pro 17.5.2 (which had a vmnat issue I kept running into so had to drop back to 17.5.1 or even 17.0.2 for that component), tested out 17.6.4 and that seemed to be ok (fixed the vmnat issue, didn't run into any other glaring issues), didn't try 25h2 base, tried 25h2u1 and that is basically too much of a hassle for the brief time (about a week) of trying to use it.  Just not worth the wasted time on my part as I have to actually do work.   

(as an aside, I have been using workstation as a licensed user since 1.0 days (switched over from SoftPC before that) would really have liked to have a end-user paid version if it would offer more QA & testing (as well as nudging for svga guest updates, openGL4.3 or DX11 is pretty old and that has always been a constant headache for the last 25 years of what could run in a VM).  

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