Virtualization

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  • 1.  VMWare Workstation 17.6 - Broken Software Updates mechanism (serious)

    Posted Jul 21, 2025 09:06 AM

    Running 17.6.3 build-24583834on Win11x64

    Seeing regular DNS queries issued from the host for FQDN "broadcom.com" - which return what looks like the SOA record

    In the client, running the check for Software Updates errors out with "Disconnected - The update server could not be resolved. Check your Internet settings or contact your system administrator." That dialog says the update server is "https://softwareupdate.broadcom.com/cds"

    Aha this is triggered by the fact that softwareupdate.broadcom.com. returns a Name Error - the hostname hasn't even been registered yet?!
    I thought maybe there was a bug in the updates mechanism in this build, until I ran an nslookup for the updates server hostname :)
    Guess I just saw windows doing name devolution on a non-existent fdqn

    Obviously related to the changes Broadcom's making specifically with the vmware s/w update channels but it's not a good look.

    The telemetry part is working fine, logs and packet dump say so anyway (funny they got the telemetry working fine)

    Can anyone confirm?

    ben



  • 2.  RE: VMWare Workstation 17.6 - Broken Software Updates mechanism (serious)

    Posted Jul 29, 2025 02:50 PM

    This is just the tip of the iceberg. After VMware was acquired by Broadcom, Workstation Pro became a joke. It's now full of bugs because we didn't pay for it. Just manually download the latest version from Broadcom's support website and hope it gets fixed someday.

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    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: VMWare Workstation 17.6 - Broken Software Updates mechanism (serious)

    Posted Aug 05, 2025 04:57 PM

    Anyone found a solution for this? I need VMware tools downloaded to my player. Don't know if all my stuff is working in VMware, so I would like to test before buy

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    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: VMWare Workstation 17.6 - Broken Software Updates mechanism (serious)

    Posted Aug 06, 2025 11:56 AM

    Never mind, I managed to manually download the VMware tools.

    But it's not very friendly to change the software repo url to something that does not even exist... What is happening with VMware after the buy?



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    /Bjorn
    VMware on Linux?
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    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: VMWare Workstation 17.6 - Broken Software Updates mechanism (serious)

    Posted Aug 19, 2025 09:07 AM

    Yes I think everyone has an opinion on this, nobody likes to see good stuff go downhill and go down the drain. But I left that aside.

    I don't think about it cause I'm not ready to accept the likely loss of of even more good tech :) I haven't surrendered on MS with the Windows family so..

    ESXi is sort of on a lifeline so it's not all a lost cause yet.

    With the changes though the support for development with API docs etc by Broadcom could be a game changer - opening up the framework leading to FOSS/community tools and software being built would be exciting.
    Imagine VMW but with third-parties fleshing out what is missing.

    Windows is a poor place to do virtualization nowadays (for anything that's not enterprise/cloud)

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    Original Message