VMWare Workstation 9 hangs when starting more than on VM

[RamonSDK]

Used to have Workstation 6.5 and on my system I was able to run 2 VMs side by side without problem. Now I upgraded to Workstation 9 and I can no longer run 2 VMs side by side. As soon as I spin up the second VM Workstation is unresponsive and the application only shows a black screen. So far I noticed this for VMs that did not have the VMWare tools upgraded and running this all in full screen mode on the secondary monitor.

Any suggestions on what to do differently or fix this are greatly appreciated. As always, the Windows logs are rather useless, but I post them below anyway.

This is my setup with the log entry details from the Windows application log.

Windows 7 64 bit with latest patches, VMs are stored on external USB drive. Used to work fine without issues on Workstation 6.5. Did perform VM hardware upgrade before starting the VMs. After reboot of host system hung VM starts up without problems.

From Windows app log:
The program vmware.exe version 9.0.1.33347 stopped interacting with Windows and was closed. To see if more information about the problem is available, check the problem history in the Action Center control panel.
Process ID: 1284
Start Time: 01ce0a0c54d8b0c6
Termination Time: 920
Application Path: C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\vmware.exe
Report Id: a11dcf80-7628-11e2-9b95-005056c00008

DETAILS
=======

- System

  - Provider

   [ Name]  Application Hang
  - EventID 1002

   [ Qualifiers]  0
   Level 2
   Task 101
   Keywords 0x80000000000000
  - TimeCreated

   [ SystemTime]  2013-02-13T21:59:57.000000000Z
   EventRecordID 167611
   Channel Application
   Computer 11-23.corp.tylertechnologies.com
   Security

- EventData

   vmware.exe
   9.0.1.33347
   1284
   01ce0a0c54d8b0c6
   920
   C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\vmware.exe
   a11dcf80-7628-11e2-9b95-005056c00008
   430072006F00730073002D00700072006F00630065007300730000000000

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Binary data:

In Words

0000: 00720043 0073006F 002D0073 00720070
0008: 0063006F 00730065 00000073 0000

In Bytes

0000: 43 00 72 00 6F 00 73 00   C.r.o.s.
0008: 73 00 2D 00 70 00 72 00   s.-.p.r.
0010: 6F 00 63 00 65 00 73 00   o.c.e.s.
0018: 73 00 00 00 00 00         s.....

[RamonSDK]

Now Workstation also hangs when I start only a single VM. I let it sit there for about an hour, but all I get is an app hang report:

Description:
  A problem caused this program to stop interacting with Windows.

Problem signature:
  Problem Event Name:    AppHangXProcB1
  Application Name:    vmware.exe
  Application Version:    9.0.1.33347
  Application Timestamp:    50923ffd
  Hang Signature:    6653
  Hang Type:    32
  Waiting on Application Name:    vmware-vmx.exe
  Waiting on Application Version:    0.0.0.0
  OS Version:    6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.48
  Locale ID:    1033
  Additional Hang Signature 1:    665375a481a4cc74469300ce7828daad
  Additional Hang Signature 2:    6e45
  Additional Hang Signature 3:    6e455e6282c1bce34ce42749a395179e
  Additional Hang Signature 4:    6653
  Additional Hang Signature 5:    665375a481a4cc74469300ce7828daad
  Additional Hang Signature 6:    6e45
  Additional Hang Signature 7:    6e455e6282c1bce34ce42749a395179e

Crashes the same way on XP 32 bit.

[dknapp]

My workstation 9 pre-empts my external USB drives such that the host cannot use them unless I turn off the USB setting. Wondering if that is happining in your case? The drive is being hijacked in a way that prevents the full file from being read. There is a way to tell VMW not to present new USB devices to the guest OS. Did you check into that?

Check at VM/Settings/USB Controller. Uncheck all options.

Hope this helps.

P.S. Unless you have a USB 3.0 drive, is it not a bit slow reading from the external USB?

[RamonSDK]

Thanks for the reply. I checked that and it didn't seem to make a difference. But that got me to look at any other options. I now disabled 3D acceleration across the board and so far this looks promising. I'll report back if that is the golden key.

As far as speed, my old USB2 no name external drive is faster than my crappy new Seagate USB3 drive at least when it comes to VMs. I'd love to crack the cases open and stick them right into my PC, but since it is a Dell it only has one internal drive slot and only two SATA ports. In all fairness, it typically works for what I need to do.

[RamonSDK]

OK, a few days in now and it appears as that switching 3D acceleration off was the magic trick here. Running two VMs happily side by side now. I did come across a few 'hangs', but that was purely Windows being busy trying to figure out what to do with all that new hardware.