VMWare "unexplained error" when opening remote console

VMWare REQUIRES ethernet connectivity on host--work around

So, the situation: Last night I was called by our head practice manager preparing for a sales demo today; he was in a panic (well, he was calm and collective, I was paniced)--the virtual machine we created for his demo was broken.

Everything had started ok: he got the virtual image started on his laptop, and was able to get to the console. But then... he closed his laptop cover with the VM running, and then when he opened it back up, he started getting this message when opening the VMWare console:

Error opening the remote {machine name}:8333\16: An unexplained error occurred.

A couple reboots later, he called me. We went through all sorts of troubleshooting, even created a new virtual, with no success—until I asked if he had Internet connectivity. Turns out the laptop coming out of hibernation did not automatically connect to the wifi network, or there were additional steps at the hotel, but regardless, he didn’t. A few Google searches turned up this life saver: http://amritbera.blogspot.com/2009/03/vmware-remote-console-unexplained-error.html

So, I had him powered off the non-functional machine, got his wifi going, opened a browser, and verified his Internet connectivity. And then, he powered up the machine again, and, viola, it worked.

The issue is that the VMWare Ethernet adapter must have a DNS entry or it gets all hosed up. So, answer is vmnet1 network adapter (an adapter that is installed automatically when VMWare installed) needs to have it’s DNS entry configured to be the same as it’s IP address to work when Internet connectivity is unavailable.

Since I didn’t think any of our sales team would know what the heck that meant, I wrote up some instructions with screenshots to make these adjustments on a Windows 7 host:

Workaround for "Unexpected Error" when starting VMWare console and NOT connected to a network:

Go to Control Panel / Network and Sharing :



Click on Manage network connections
- You may have to change to detail view and expand the device name so you can see the whole name:



- Right click on the one that is VMWare Virtual Ethernet Adapter for VMnet1
- Select Properties




- Click Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) and select Properties



Leave the top part alone, but under DNS server addresses, enter
Copy whatever is in IP Address to the Preferred DNS server:


In my case, I am copying 192.168.207.1, but this may be different for you.


That should do it, and is sufficient to solve the problem for all virtual machines running on the host. Thanks to Amrit Bera for the solution!!