Unable to detect network card on Windows VM

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi
• VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0

Issue/Introduction

• The network card is not being detected correctly within the OS.
• This issue occurs only on Windows VMs and affects both vmxnet3 and E1000e network adapters.
• The following error is observed inside the VM:

 

• The network card shows connected on the edit setting of the VM

• Automatic VMware Tools installation will fail and below log entries shall be noticed in vmware logs:

2025-12-09T12:04:12.125Z No(00) vmx - ConfigDB: Setting toolsInstall.origType = "cdrom-image"
2025-12-09T12:04:12.125Z No(00) vmx - ConfigDB: Setting toolsInstall.origClientDevice = "FALSE"
2025-12-09T12:04:12.136Z No(00) vmx - ConfigDB: Setting toolsInstallManager.lastInstallError = "0"
2025-12-09T12:09:15.180Z In(05) vmx - TOOLS INSTALL cancelling tools installation (error=5).

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi

Resolution

Kindly engage your OS team to understand the cause of the network card not being detected.