Slow Windows 2008 VM Video Performance when viewing through an ESX console
Today one of my colleagues mentioned he was experiencing poor video performance with a windows 2008 VM. When he accessed the VM via vCenter Server Console the mouse was performing poorly..
We did a bit of research and found the article below… it fixed our issue in a jiffy..
Note: This post/notes are simply for my reference and I don’t recommend you apply this to your environment…
Troubleshooting SVGA drivers installed with VMware Tools on Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 running on ESX 4.0
Details
- You receive a black screen on the virtual machine when using Windows 7 or Windows 2008 R2 as a guest operating system on ESX 4.0.
- You experience slow mouse performance on Windows 2008 R2 virtual machine.
Solution
This issue can occur due to the XPDM (SVGA) driver provided with VMware Tools. This is a legacy Windows driver and is not supported on Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 guest operating systems.
To workaround this issue, replace the Display Adapter default-installed driver within the virtual machine with the driver contained in the wddm_video folder. In vCenter Server 4.1 (for Windows 2008 R2 operating systems), the wddm_video folder is in C:\Program Files\Common Files\VMware\Drivers.
To move a copy of this driver from the vCenter Server to the virtual machine:
- Open a command line share to the vCenter Server from the virtual machine:
c$ share
- Navigate to C:\Program Files\Common Files\VMware\Drivers and copy the driver to a location on the virtual machine (C:\, for example).
- Within the virtual machine, right-click Computer > Manage > Diagnostics > Device Manager, then expand the Display Adapters selection.
- Right-click the Driver that is currently installed and choose Update Driver Software. Browse to the folder that you copied from vCenter Server, select it, then follow the wizard.
- When the wizard completes, reboot the virtual machine.
To resolve this issue, update to ESX 4.0 Update 1. A new WDDM driver is installed with the updated VMware Tools and is compatible with Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2.
If you are able to update to ESX 4.0 Update 1, but receive a black screen on the virtual machine after changing to the new driver, click Edit Settings and change the video settings to 32MB.
If you cannot update to ESX 4.0 Update 1:
- Deselect the driver included with ESX 4.0.
- When you install VMware Tools, select Custom or Modify in the VMware Tools installation wizard
- Deselect the SVGA (XPDM) driver.
You can also remove the VMware Tools SVGA driver from the Device Manager after installing VMware Tools.
Note: To install the drivers successfully, ensure that the virtual machine hardware version is 7.
