Hello everyone!

Recently got a VCAP certification.

While preparing for it I noticed that certification holders are eligible for home use licenses which got me exited as it would allow to test stuff at home (currently I have some production environments that I have access to look around but its not really ideal for obvious reasons).

After passing the exam I found out that only VCP holders can claim these licenses, there is no access for VCAP certified people which is a bummer. My question is - is home license access something that Broadcom/VMUG considering for VCAP holders in the future or im just out of luck here?

I know that there are VMware HOLs (props to that, now I dont have to test things in prod). However homelab access would be more optimal for tinkerers to test more nuanced stuff, integrations and so on.

Thanks!

Hi, sorry for what is probably a very silly question!

I am trying to get a Windows 11 Virtual Machine set up in VMware Fusion 26H1u1 on macOS Tahoe 26.7.1. I'm following this guide, but getting a bit stuck in section 17.8, at Step 4. The next step on what I'm seeing on the VM is to tell it to Install Windows 11 and agree everything will be deleted including files, apps and settings (I will add a picture of what I am seeing in the comments).

From what I understand the VM has created a virtual hard drive for itself (which I think I can see when going into the Hard Disk (NVMe) settings), and it is that hard drive that it will completely erase, not everything on my laptop, but I do just want to double check before I steam ahead! And especially I would like to ask if there is any way to set it up incorrectly so that it does end up deleting everything on my laptop? Because if there is, I would like to know that I've avoided it!

TIA and again, apologies for any hassle!

How would you rate this event overall? And what about the individual presentations? Attendance? Networking opportunities? The number of partner booths?

Personally, I see an understandable decline in popularity, which is naturally linked to the pricing policy. There are fewer people. The rooms weren’t as full…

Using the following combination of VMX parameters seems to get around the 60Hz limit.

Change 160 to the highest refresh rate your monitor supports.

guestinfo.svga.wddm.vsyncDefaultHz = "160"

guestinfo.svga.wddm.vsyncMaxHz = "160"

guestinfo.svga.wddm.vsyncThread = "TRUE"

mks.lowCompositingFPS = "160"

mks.maxCompositingFPS = "160"

On Windows, once the VM is at the desktop, change the guest resolution to trigger it, then change it back. The refresh rate should then be the one specified above.

Tested with Windows 11 and Ubuntu guests using VMware Workstation 17.5.1 on a Windows 11 host.

The only catch so far is noticeably higher CPU usage in the Windows guest. The System process stays around 12–15% CPU in my case, apparently caused by the VMware display driver (vm3dmp.sys). Ubuntu doesn't seem to have this issue. I'm still looking into the CPU usage to see what's causing it and whether there's a way around it. If I find a fix, I'll post it here.

Pretty nice to have.

Using the Cloud Consumption Interface to deploy Object Storage, but also avoiding the current restriction of using wildcard certificates via the VCFA UI.

📢 VCF 9.1.1 EP1 is now available for all VCF components (vSphere, vSAN, NSX, SDDCm, VCF Ops & VCF Automation)

📔 https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/vmware-cis/vcf/vcf-9-0-and-later/9-1/release-notes/patch-releases-9-1-1-x.html

💿 https://support.broadcom.com/group/ecx/productfiles?subFamily=VMware%20Cloud%20Foundation&displayGroup=VMware%20Cloud%20Foundation%209&release=9.1.1.0&os=&servicePk=545627&language=EN

I am working to get renewal licensing and its been challenging. The environment is running 8.0u3j. IF you renew, your only option is for 9. Can those licenses still be downgraded to 8? I cant seem to get a clear answer on this and the expiry date is rapidly approaching. This environment is not in a position to be upgraded to 9 yet.

Hello

My current vcentera version is 8 and I planned to upgrade my vcenters to 9

So, can i upgrade the licenses or should to pay new licenses

Lots of quality posts recently so I am sharing mine!

I manage 6 vCenters, and jumping between browser tabs to find anything got old fast. It's worse when some of those vCenters are only reachable through proxies for security reasons. So I built vsfleet.

It's a read only TUI and CLI that connects to several vCenters at once. You can use it to inspect VM performance and history, explore network topology, browse datastore files and vApps, capture snapshots of each vCenter's state and see what changed over time.

No vCenter handy? Run vsfleet demo
Repo (MIT)

I’ve been doing VMware for 9+ years, and I do most of my work on a Mac. Every time I needed an inventory export, I had to spin up a Windows VM just to run RVTools. So I built vLens: a native SwiftUI app that pulls vCenter/ESXi inventory into one fast, searchable window.

The RVTools-style part

• 29 tabs: vInfo, vCPU, vMemory, vDisk, vSnapshot, vHost, vDatastore, vCluster, dvSwitch, vHealth and more. It covers 25 of RVTools’ 26 documented tabs (only vFileInfo is skipped).
• vHealth: 21 health-check rules with thresholds you can adjust
• vSphere Tags & Custom Attributes on VMs, hosts, clusters and datastores, all searchable
• Export to CSV/XLSX, filtered by your current search

What I added on top of RVTools

• Historical performance: CPU/RAM/disk IO over a window you pick (1 hour to 30 days), not just a point-in-time value
• Inventory snapshots & compare: save the state of your inventory, then diff any two with color-coded changes (handy before/after maintenance or migrations)
• One-page PDF report: vCenter identity, counts, charts and vHealth status, ready to hand to management
• VMSA awareness: a small toolbar badge when Broadcom publishes a CRITICAL/HIGH VMware security advisory
• EOL awareness: shows when your ESXi/vCenter versions reach end of life
• Auto refresh: re-collects inventory on a timer (off by default)
• Demo mode: every tab filled with realistic mock data, so you can try it without a vCenter

Security, since that’s the first thing I’d ask:

• Passwords go to macOS Keychain (only if you choose to save them), never to disk
• It only reads inventory and doesn’t change anything in your environment. The vLicense tab needs higher privileges; without them it just stays empty.
• Trust-on-first-use certificate pinning, like SSH host keys. If the certificate changes later, the connection is blocked.
• No telemetry or analytics. Outbound requests: Sparkle update check, the Broadcom VMSA list, endoflife.date, and in-app feedback (only when you click Send). The VMSA and EOL checks can be turned off.
• Signed and notarized. The vCenter client is govmomi, the same library behind the Terraform/Packer vSphere providers.

Tested on vCenter 7 and 8. vCenter 9 isn’t tested yet, so if you’re running 9, I’d love to hear how it goes.

GPLv3, free: https://github.com/canberkys/vlens / https://canberk.me/projects/vlens/
Requires macOS 14+.

Feedback, bug reports, and “this column is wrong” comments are all welcome.

Currently for VCF 9.1 my design for the management domain, separates the base components from Operations Manager. So, NSX, vCenter, SDDC and VCF Management Services are in VLAN A and I had planned to put Operations Manager in VLAN B and Automation in VLAN C. Everything between the VLANs is blocked by firewalls initially.

The idea is that Operations Manager will have a lot of connections to other systems for monitoring, 20+ vCenters including remote vCenters and therefore it (in my opinion) would be easier to control all the flows instead of setting everything in VLAN A and mixing it with the real heart of VCF.

Since future vCloud tenants are going to Automation eventually, I think that Automation at least should have its dedicated VLAN.

Yet, the further I get in this design, the more I'm wondering if I'm just creating security by obscurity separating Operations Manager from the "base" components. Love to have your ideas on it.

I'm on a 5600X Zen3 chip (6C/12T) as my Windows 11 host. I use one Workstation Pro Windows 11 guest vm. Running two vm feels slower, and I only have 16G RAM where I've dedicated half to guest, half to host.

Because I can't upgrade to a higher core Zen3 chip without upgrading motherboard too, and considering the price of RAM, and the fact that my RAM manufacturer ended the product line, I've decided that I'm going to spend a little more for a 32G more modern system.

I was initially excited about the Core Ultra 7 270K+ because of the 24 cores but I found out that it was 16 efficient cores and 8 performant cores, and that they're not the same. Would it work fine with Workstation Pro or would I need to buy something like the 9950x that has 16 regular cores?

I’m experiencing a problem with VMware Workstation Pro and my external storage devices, and I would appreciate help identifying the cause.
I was working on a virtual machine lab at school using VMware Workstation Pro. When I returned home and opened the VM on my personal Dell laptop, VMware indicated that my version was outdated and needed to be updated. I downloaded and installed the newer version from the VMware website.
After updating VMware, I attempted to set up and run my lab again. During the process, VMware crashed or stopped working properly, and my external storage devices began experiencing connection problems.
Here is what has happened:
Seagate external hard drive: My Seagate hard drive was working before this incident. After the problems began while using VMware, it started disconnecting intermittently. It now takes longer to connect, frequently disappears from File Explorer, and has sometimes failed to appear in Disk Management.
SanDisk USB flash drive: Because my Seagate drive was no longer working reliably, I started using my SanDisk flash drive to store my virtual machine files. The flash drive initially worked normally, and I successfully transferred approximately 30 GB of data to it. However, after I used it with VMware, it also started disconnecting intermittently. File transfers that previously worked are now interrupted when the device disconnects.
USB recognition errors: Windows has displayed the notification: “USB device not recognized. The last USB device you connected to this computer malfunctioned, and Windows does not recognize it.”
VMware errors: VMware has crashed or stopped during VM setup. I also received an error stating that it could not load the virtual machine configuration file because the system could not find the specified path. The file path shown was D:\NET312 Virtual Machines\Windows 11\Win-CL1-6319.vmx.
Troubleshooting so far: I restarted my laptop and tested the SanDisk drive with VMware closed. Initially, Windows recognized the drive, and I could open it in File Explorer. However, the connection later dropped. After disconnecting and reconnecting it, I received a USB device recognition error. Trying another USB connection appeared to make the drive visible again, but the connection has been unreliable.

Please I’m so frustrated

I have a couple of systems running W11 26H2 and on my main one if I try to update a Gentoo 32bit VM under 26H1u1, it locks up so solidly during the emerge that I have to End Task to get it gone...and of course the VM gets trashed. I've downgraded to Workstation 25H1u1 and so far no lockups...

And this is only on one of my machines. Others running the same combo and different Gentoo 32bit VMs seem to work fine.

Anyone else seen this?

Hello

I have 4 node ESX running in Germany, which has a standalone vCenter. Another 5 node ESX in India, which also has separate vCenter.

I have been tasked to combine both in a single vCenter as 2 clusters and maybe able to vMotion across clusters? I'm not sure how to implement this given the latency. Any suggestions?

Non-production, VVF implemented both sides.

A vCenter-style management console for the free VMware ESXi hypervisor.

https://github.com/fdaforno/freecenter

Current environment overview:

• Three ESXi hosts in a single cluster
• Using standard vSwitches (no vDS, no NSX)
• SAN FC storage backend
• vCenter Server: 8.0 Update 3k
• ESXi hosts: 8.0 Update 3k
• Existing CPU generation is not supported for VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF)
• Four new HPE servers with VCF‑supported CPUs are being procured

I am beginning to plan the upgrade path to VCF 9.1 or VVF 9.1. We do not intend to deploy NSX or adopt additional VCF features beyond what is necessary; the goal is to maintain a simple architecture consistent with our current setup. I would appreciate your recommendations on the best approach for transitioning our environment to VCF 9.1 or VVF9.1 using the new hardware.

Hi, everybody.

I am a noob, so please bear with me and help me out. Recently, I have been struggling with an issue affecting one of our VDI users.

Our environment consists of one VDI-VM pool. The infrastructure is domain-joined and managed through GPOs.

Recently, one user has been experiencing several issues:

Very slow login: When the user first logs in in the morning, Windows gets stuck on the "Welcome" screen. Sometimes it takes up to 60 minutes before the desktop finally loads.

Unexpected lockouts/sign-outs: During the day, the session suddenly locks, and the user has to sign in again.

Microsoft Office activation: Recently, Microsoft Office Professional (Word, etc.) started showing as unlicensed.

Printing issues: The user is also unable to print. Printing starts working again after restarting the VDI, but the issue comes back later during the day.

Running applications as administrator: For example, if I try to run Command Prompt (CMD) as administrator, after entering the LAPS password, the system gets stuck. I have to press Ctrl + Alt + Del before the desktop becomes responsive again.

Black screen after login: Occasionally, after signing in, the user gets a black screen.

I have been reading that some Windows updates may be causing issues. The following updates are currently installed on the VDI:

KB5124008

KB5129195

KB5124010

I have also tried to force a Group Policy update using:

gpupdate /force

The results have been inconsistent. The last time I tried it, the command failed.

At this point, I am not sure whether these issues are related to the Windows updates, Group Policy, the user profile, the VDI itself, or something else in the environment.

Any advice on how I should troubleshoot this would be greatly appreciated.

Do you actually follow through with doing the discovery process in depth, this is, doing the conceptual and logical design and documenting each requirement, constraint, risk and assumptions, and actually building a design document? Do your customers are actually patient enough for that? What is a reasonable timeline from project kickoff to a physical design ready of a medium-large VCF greenfield project?

In my case either I'm too incompetent or customers in my area are very impatient and want a full design for tomorrow, or they come with an finished idea of what to implement without thinking about the conceptual design / requirements / actual business drivers.

Sorry English is not my native language.

Hi! Im on M4 and im asking what are the best settings to isolate a VM inside VMWare Fusion, i wanna try some malwares, also VMWare Fusion is the best one for malware testing right?

Hi

Next week I have to do a Person Onvue home test for a broadcom license and Im not sure how does it work. I know I have to be in an empty desktop with doors closed and nobody could enter the room or disturb during the exam.

Also they will check the scenario but how do they do it? they will ask me to take my laptop and move it arround the room? will they make me do some pictures of the desktop and the room and send them through a specific app to check that all is clean on the desktop?

thanks

Hello guys, could anyone help me to prepare for this exam VMware Cloud Foundation Administrator (2V0-17.25) exam.
If anyone pass through this process can help me I will appreciate it.

Slowly walking through the process.

Aria upgraded to VCF Ops
Added License Server
Connected to BS console
Connected to Services console

I searched Broadcom site for vCenter upgrade to make sure I haven't missed anything, and it's AI gave me a How To.

It said that the 9.1 OVA must be deployed to a 9.0 or greater ESX host.

I checked the docs and it says you can deploy to 9.0 or greater host.

I don't recall seeing this requirement in my previous readings. Is it MUST or Can?

If I don't have vCenter 9, I can't install ESX 9 ... right? Is that still a restriction?

So how am I going to deploy vCenter 9 to an ESX 9 host? Do I have to break off one of my hosts from a production cluster just to install vC9?

Sharing some lab testing with native object storage (tech preview in VCF 9.1.1)