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  • 1.  VMwareTools & Win2016 nic problem

    Posted Jan 21, 2021 02:19 PM

    Hi all.

    I just wonder, does everyone still have problem with Win2016 server and automatic upgrade of VMware Tools during MS Software Updates?

    Windows 2016 Server loses its network card after a reboot with autoupdate of tools enabled (71386) (vmware.com)

    Haven't been using the automatic upgrade of Win2016 servers for a long time since this happened to us on a large scale, but decided to try it once more during MS January patches.

    Only testet on a small amount of servers (20) but half of it failed.

    Does everyone handles VMware Tools "manually" or third party (SCCM, vCenter etc.)?

     

    Regards,

    Tore



  • 2.  RE: VMwareTools & Win2016 nic problem

    Posted May 18, 2021 02:13 PM

    Hi Tore

     

    Did you find a solution to this? We're seeing it in our estate.  Approximately 15% of VMs end up with no networking and removed VMware Tools after auto-upgrade that occurs at the same time as a Microsoft Update operation.  We've only seen this with VMware Tools 11.2 and later.

    We think it's related to the dependency on newer Visual C++ runtimes which would get installed by the VMware Tools installer.  These need a reboot, after which VMware Tools is upgrade, expect sometimes Tools is removed, but not reinstalled.

    As yet, we've not found a common cause, so we're thinking some sort of race condition, but I can't reproduce the problem on demand.  We had a case open with GSS, but they basically said 'upgrade tools manually', which I disagree with as we've always auto-upgraded VMware Tools (for years) without issue.

    Thanks

    Mike