Lost Windows 11 networking on Fusion after Windows upgrade

[Joseph Mitchell]

 There has to be something stupid behind this.

I had a Windows 11 VM running on VMWare Fusion 12.5, Sonoma 14.5, Intel processor. Running just fine after tearing hair out at initial configuration last year.

I rebooted it this morning and things got weird after a Windows Upgrade. No network connection. Tried resetting, switching from Autodetect from Mac, no help.

I've repeatedly rebooted the VM, restarted Fusion, restarted the Mac. Same result.

So figuring that the Windows upgrade was hosed, I rolled back to a previous snapshot. SAME RESULT.

Re-installed VMWare Tools. Same result.

I've looked at VMWare.log and don't see any errors that seem to be related to the issue.

I've got Windows 10 and Windows 8 VMs running as well, they are fine.

I'm on a hotel network, so switched to iPhone tethering, same result. With and without VPN, using different continents. Same result.

Knowing that I was going to need support, I saw that 12.5 and Sonoma 14.5 aren't supposed to be compatible. So I installed VMWare 13.5. Same result.

Giving up I restored a backup from last month.
SAME RESULT.

I did get a workaround by bypassing DHCP and putting in all settings manually, but once I went to a new network it fails again.  My Win10 VM continues to work fine, and it provided the basis for my manual settings.

This is all pretty much impossible, so that means that there is something I'm overlooking. Any ideas?

[Technogeezer]

You've done a lot of things so it's going to be impossible to backtrack to figure out exactly what went wrong.

We're going to have to start troubleshooting with what you've got right now. 

What build of Windows 11 are you running in that VM? (use the winver.exe utility in the VM to find this out).

Is this VM configured for running NAT networking ("share with my mac") or bridged networking? If bridged, what network interface is being used for the bridge (or is it set to "Automatic")?

If you're able to get things working with manually configuring networking, then the basic networking stack is working properly. If you can't get an assigned address when using DHCP, then we'll have to see what DHCP server (either your bridged network or VMware's NAT DHCP).

One thought --- you wouldn't happen to have two VM's configured with the same MAC address for the virtual NICs do you?

Can you zip up and post all the files with a .log extension that are found in the VM's bundle for this VM that's failing?  (Locate the VM in the Finder, right click on it, then select "Show package contents". The files can be found there.

[Joseph Mitchell]

I do not seem to have "Reply" available for response to Technogeezer, so I'm responding to my own post.  Thanks for the fast response in any case.

My windows version is 23H2. I'm using "Automatic" bridged networking but that setting doesn't influence the result.

I've tried different IP addresses and don't think there is a collision.

Important: While I did have manual configuration working for a while, it does not work now. I'm assuming the networking stack is somehow entirely hosed. It is bridged.

C:\Users\jwmit>ipconfig

Windows IP Configuration
Ethernet adapter Ethernet0:

   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
   Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::412:76fe:f51a:5afb%4
   IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.34.165
   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.34.2

[Joseph Mitchell]

Another follow-up. 

I ran through the entire process (again) of uninstalling network drivers and re-installing using VMWare tools. I still an unable to connect to network even after manual configuration. Ping of standard IPs (2.2.2.2) doesn't work. 

Here's final ipconfig

Ethernet adapter Ethernet0:

   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) 82574L Gigabit Network Connection
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-0C-29-44-DE-A8
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
   Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::978:e19c:cf24:7830%14(Preferred)
   IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.34.167(Preferred)
   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.34.2
   DHCPv6 IAID . . . . . . . . . . . : 67111977
   DHCPv6 Client DUID. . . . . . . . : 00-01-00-01-2F-6C-16-2B-00-0C-29-44-DE-A8
   DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.34.2
   NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

[Joseph Mitchell]

Final update:

I found an older copy of the VM file, and reinstalled it. 

Still having the same issue after re-encryption and upgrade, though IP values are a little different. 

See screenshot

[Technogeezer]

Since you posted this as a Q & A instead of a Discussion type of post, the only way to respond to the thread is to click the "Answer" button. It's a quirk of how this platform works. If you had posted as a Discussion, you'd be able to reply to each message.

Now on to your issue...

What's the network settings for your Mac host? Is it wired Ethernet or WiFi?

If WiFi, what's the network access point/wireless router?

From what you're posting it looks like your host Mac has an IP address on the 192.168.34.0/24 network with a network gateway of 192.168.34.2.

The first two examples seem to indicate that your VM is obtaining an IP address from the DHCP server on your network. The most recent one (third one that you provided a screen shot for) is not showing that the VM is obtaining an IP address from your network's DHCP server.

If you switch the virtual networking from Bridged to NAT (Share with my Mac) do the symptoms change?

If you're able to get an IP address for the network in the VM, can you ping the gateway?

with Fusion running, can you drop into the Terminal on the Mac and post the output of ifconfig -a

Is this Mac running any kind of VPN or third party firewall software?

[Joseph Mitchell]

Technogeezer - Been traveling so sorry for the delay. 

Being back on the home network seems to be the magic, for reasons I do not understand.  Switching over to DHCP works on both Bridged and NAT.  Something specific to how hotel networks are configured, possibly, since I was able to connect from residences without a problem.

Just for your reference, here are current working settings:

Win11:

Ethernet adapter Ethernet0:

   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) 82574L Gigabit Network Connection
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-0C-29-44-DE-A8
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
   Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::412:76fe:f51a:5afb%4(Preferred)
   IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.79(Preferred)
   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
   Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Friday, March 28, 2025 5:13:45 PM
   Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Saturday, March 29, 2025 5:13:45 PM
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
   DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
   DHCPv6 IAID . . . . . . . . . . . : 100666409
   DHCPv6 Client DUID. . . . . . . . : 00-01-00-01-2F-6C-16-2B-00-0C-29-44-DE-A8
   DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
   NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

Mac:

en0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    options=6460<TSO4,TSO6,CHANNEL_IO,PARTIAL_CSUM,ZEROINVERT_CSUM>
    ether 88:66:5a:1b:4e:80
    inet 192.168.1.13 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
    media: autoselect
    status: active

Thanks again for the interest.

[Technogeezer]

If you're finding this with bridged networking on a Wi-Fi network that's not your own (such as a hotel network). it may be the fault of the Wi-Fi access point. Some access point DHCP services can be configured to refuse to hand out multiple IP addresses to a physical connection/port. 

If I were in a hotel and needed to run a VM. I'd configure the VM for NAT networking.