Microsoft Convenience Update and VMware VMXNet3 Incompatibilities

Microsoft recently released a “Convenience Update” patch for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1. This update has incompatibility issues with virtual machines running on the VMware vSphere virtualization platform. This incompatibility is confined to one specific configuration scenario – It impacts VMs that use the VMware VMXNet3 virtual network adapter type

Here is the incompatibility issue as described in Microsoft’s announcement of the Update:

A new Ethernet vNIC may be created with default settings in place of the previously existing vNIC, causing network issues.  Any custom settings on the previous vNIC are still persisted in the registry but unused.

To resolve this issue, uninstall the convenience rollup.

Microsoft is investigating this issue to determine proper course of action with VMWare. To resolve this issue uninstall the convenience rollup. Further information will be posted here as the investigation continues.