Not too long ago I started testing Windows 2008 server and see how applications that I use on Windows Servers behave. As soon as I got the W2k8 up and running there was two things I noticed and that bothered me quite a bit.
Img Credit:Crunchgear.com
One was that server response was very slow when I opened console in VMware, so slow that it took me almost a minute to click on My Computer, C drive and go to Program files , even though server had few CPU’s and few GB of memory assigned. I mean Windows 2003 and other servers were just fine, so after bit of a digging around VMWare Forums I found one solution that fixed Windows 2008 running slow on VMWare.
Here is how I fixed it:
Go to
C:\Program Files\Common Files\ Drivers\wddm_video\
If you have those folders, that means that Virtual Drivers are installed on W2k8 server if you don’t, please install it before you proceed.
I am assuming you are familiar with the Windows enough and know where Device Manager is? Well go to Device Manager, find your Video Card under Display.
Right Click and Click Properties. Then go to Driver Tab and click Update Driver…
Window will popup asking you if you want the driver isntalled automatically or you can chose the installation folder. Go with the option 2.
Click on Browse and point it to the location we talked about above and click next.Windows 2008 Server should find the video card drivers and install them. After you are done with installing the drivers, please reboot the VMware instance.
That solved my problem with Windows 2008 servers being slow on VMware , I hope it will solve yours too.
Second issue I faced, which unfortunately I have not yet been able to resolve is the RDP session being slow on Windows 2008 Server. When I open VMware console W2k8 server is acting ok, no delays whatsoever, but when I use RDP to connect to W2k8 server, omg that thing runs like Windows 98 on 133mhz and 32GB ram! Not kidding…
Am actually writing this article in hope that some of you W2k8 experts might be able to solve this 2nd issue of mine and share some information in commenting section below, as to what I can do to speed Windows 2008 server RDP session up.
If you had chance to play with Wk28 , like it? Hate it? Sucks? Love it?