Virtual machine loses network adapter/loss of connectivity after a failed or Corrupted VMware Tools Installation

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0

Issue/Introduction

After a failed or corrupted installation of VMware Tools on a Virtual Machine, the network adaptor is unmounted and lost.

• Windows Guest OS based Virtual machines using the VMXNET3 network adapter experience random loss of network connectivity.
• The network adapter may disappear from the Guest OS entirely or show as an "Unknown Device" in Windows Device Manager.
• The entry under the Virtual Machine > Edit Settings > Network Adaptor appears to be blank or unassigned. 
• Installation or upgrade of VMware Tools may fail with error code 21004 or a timeout error (0x800705b4). Upgrade of the VMware tools failed with error: Setup failed to install the VMXNet3 driver automatically. This driver will have to be installed manually.
• Device Manager withing the Guest OS displays a yellow ! warning on the Ethernet Controller with Code 28 (Drivers not installed).
• Error in vmfs/volumes/<datastore>/<VMname>/vmware.log of the affected Virtual Machine shows the VMXNET3 driver status as "unloaded."
  ###-##-##T##:##:##.###Z In(05) vcpu-1 - Guest: Driver=vmxnet3, Version=1.9.20.0 - unloaded
• VMware Tools reports missing components in the vmfs/volumes/<datastore>/<VMname>/vmware.log of the affected Virtual Machine
  ###-##-##T##:##:##.###Z In(05) worker-2557749 - ToolsVersion: Status is supported new because this is status of monolithic version, and vmxnet3 and more components are missing from the guest.

Environment

• VMware vSphere ESXi 8.x
• VMware Tools 12.x

Cause

• The issue is caused by a corrupted VMware Tools installation where the VMXNET3 driver component is either missing or failed to register correctly during an upgrade. This often occurs when a VMware Tools upgrade is initiated while Windows Update processes are pending or when the "Device Install Service" in Windows is disabled. These conditions lead to an inconsistent state where the VMXNET3 driver is unloaded by the Guest OS and cannot be re-initialized.

Resolution

A complete reinstallation of VMware Tools from within the Guest OS is required.

1. Uninstall VMware Tools from the Control Panel
2. Reboot the Guest OS
3. Navigate to the Device Manager > Locate the Network Adaptors/Drivers > Right Click and Uninstall Device
4. Reinstall VMware Tools using the methods found in Installing VMware Tools on a VMware vSphere virtual machine running Windows OS but choose Complete method instead.
   1. Ensure that your Windows VM is powered on.
   2. Log into the VM as an admin user.
   3. When the desktop has loaded, go to virtual machine menu, then click VM> Guest > Install/Upgrade VMware Tools, and click OK.
   4. The installation wizard appears in the virtual machine's console.
      Note: If the VMware Tools installation does not start automatically, ensure that the CDROM Autorun is enabled in your Windows environment. To manually run the installation, double-click Computer and double-click on the CDROM.
   5.  Follow the prompts in the wizard to complete the VMware Tools installation. Choose the Complete installation option.
   6. When the VMware Tools installation has finished, restart the virtual machine for the changes to take effect.

Additional Information

• To prevent recurrence, ensure all pending Windows Updates are fully installed and the system has been rebooted before attempting a VMware Tools upgrade. Network Outage Due to Invalid vmxnet3 Driver After Windows Server 2019 Update
• If the automatic installation continues to fail, the driver can be extracted from the VMware Tools ISO and installed manually via Device Manager. Setup failed to install the VMXNet3 driver automatically.  This driver will have to be installed manually