Removing Unnecessary Hardware from VMware Fusion VM

Products

• VMware Desktop Hypervisor

Issue/Introduction

You can use virtual machine hardware settings to add, remove, and modify virtual devices for a virtual machine.
To configure hardware settings for a selected virtual machine, select VM > Settings and select a device under Removable Devices list in the pane, the configuration options for that device appear to remove.

Cause

If there is unused Hardware present in the VM, it might cause heap overflow and it may lead to security issues

Resolution

Prerequisites:
Shut down or power off the virtual machine. You cannot change the setting while the virtual machine is powered on or suspended.

1. Select Window (From Mac menu bar)> Virtual Machine Library.
2. Select a virtual machine in the Virtual Machine Library window and Select VM & click Settings.
3. Under Removable Devices in the Settings window, Select a device from below list to remove

You can remove the following types of devices from a virtual machine.

• Network Adapters
• Hard Disk
• Camera
• CD/DVD
• Sound Card
• USB and Bluetooth
• Serial ports
• Parallel ports
• Printer
• Floppy Drive
• Trusted Platform Module device

4. Under Advanced options, click Remove device. 

Note: You cannot remove hardware from a virtual machine while it is in suspended mode.

Additional Information

Impact/Risks:
User would not be able to perform any operations associated to that Virtual device, once it is removed from VM.