VMWare Player slows down computer after exit

Question

After exiting VMWare player, my main OS (Windows 7) lags and slows down tremendously. The HDD is seeking excessively. I see that the issue is that it's swapping tons of pages rapidly. This lasts for about 5-10 minutes.

I followed the instructions here http://twigstechtips.blogspot.ca/2009/03/fix-vmware-slow-to-release-swapped.html but they don't work. It was 3 years ago so I think the fix is outdated.

Or rather I don't know where this guest.vmx file is. The closest thing I could find to a config file is C:\Users\Jack\AppData\Roaming\VMware\preferences.ini

Anyone have a new solution?

Solution

vmx is refering to the .vmx file of you machine. So if your machine's name is webDev2012 then the file you should search is webDev2012.vmx

Open this file and add these three lines:

mainMem.useNamedFile = "FALSE"

prefvmx.useRecommendedLockedMemSize = "TRUE"

prefvmx.minVmMemPct = "100"

enojoy...

Comments

[David Schwartz]

Most likely, it's still processing a snapshot. You can turn this off or not use snapshots as much, but I would make sure this is what you want to do.

[Paul]

How much physical ram do you have and how much are you allocating to the VM?

[Jack]

@Paul It's not a RAM problem. I have 8GB and giving 2GB to the VM. I can use both of them simultaneously with no performance problems. It is only when I exit the VMWare player that the slow down begins.

[ncoghlan]

Report of a similar problem: superuser.com/questions/399446/…

[Jack]

@ncoghlan You realize that there was no solution in that question, right?

[ncoghlan]

@Jack - sure, just pointing out another report of the same problem. I haven't been able to find a fix (or even a good explanation) here, anywhere on the vmware site, or anywhere on the entire internet.

[Bfoust250]

I believe the 'guest.vmx' that Twig is referring to is the vmx file for your VM. For instance, my VM is called 'Fedora_17', so guest.vmx is actually 'Fedora_17/Fedora_17.vmx' in my VM folder. I haven't had a chance to confirm this though, as my VM stopped having this problem yesterday for no apparent reason. Try Twig's fix with that vmx file and see if it works for you.

[Jack]

@Bfoust250 Yea I actually figured that out a few months ago and it solved my issue. That blog post wasn't very clear. I don't know why that setting isn't set by default. But thanks though.

[bishop]

The original source of these instructions appears to be Bryon Brewer's blog article "VMWare Guest Shutdowns very slow". Per that article, the file to edit is actually \ProgramData\VMware\VMware Player\config.ini (replace "VMware Player" with "VMware Workstation" if that's what you're using).

[Alaa M.]

My file is at C:\Users\UserName\Documents\VirtualMachines\Ubuntu64\Ubuntu6‌​4.vmx