KB: ESX 4.0 Update 1: Windows 32bit VM with the VMware Tools XPDM SVGA II graphics driver installed fail

Twitter Updates

rynardtspies: @Twickersmatt Just getting to grips with the products. Will give you a shout if we get stuck. Thanks! 22 hours ago from TweetDeck in reply to Twickersmatt

Last week, a colleague of mine was informed by VMware of an issue with VMware ESX 4.0 Update 1 hosting 32-bit Windows 2003 Virtual Machines with more than 3GB of RAM. the issue causes VMs with the configuration specified below to crash upon reboot.

32-Bit Microsoft Windows Operating Systems that use the XPDM (Windows XP Display Driver Model)
- Specifically: Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Vista
Virtual Machine RAM is Set to a value above 3GB
VMware Tools Update 1 installed with the SVGA XPDM Driver

This bug does not affect the stability of virtual machines during normal business operations and it only affects ESX/i 4.0 Update 1 environments. Update 2 will include a fix for this issue.

In the meantime, use one of the following workarounds:

Upgrade the virtual machine guest operating systems to 64-bit;
Reduce the virtual machine memory to 3GB or lower;
Request a hot-patch from VMware Support;
Deploy Update 1 with one of the following options:
- Install the Update 1 VMware Tools, but uninstall the display driver (SVGA XPDM) immediately
- Install the Update 1 VMware Tools and replace the SVGA XPDM U1 driver with the original 4.0 version;
- Do not update the VMware Tools on your Virtual Machines to Update 1.