64-bit applications that are not built with the '/LARGEADDRESSAWARE:YES' flag crash

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• On 64-bit Windows Guest VMs, certain 64-bit applications may terminate unexpectedly. As a result, the associated services for these executables can also stop running.
• Examples of affected applications/services include Veritas NetBackup service (bpinetd.exe) and Docker Engine for Windows.

Environment

• VMware Tools 11.x

Cause

• In VMware Tools 11.0.0, a new plugin named 'appInfo' was bundled. This plugin, which runs every 30 minutes by default (configurable by the guest administrator), gathers information about currently running processes.
• To do this, it creates a remote thread within the target 64-bit process to capture its command line. If the target 64-bit application was not built with the '/LARGEADDRESSAWARE:YES' flag, this remote thread can cause the application to crash.

Resolution

This issue has been resolved in VMware Tools version 11.0.6. For further details, please refer to the VMware Tools 11.0.6 Release Notes

Workaround:

• To workaround this issue in the meantime, disable the appinfo plugin within the guest VM by opening a Command Prompt, navigating to C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools, and running the command - vmwaretoolboxcmd.exe config set appinfo disabled true