During the installation of Windows Server 2012 VMXNet3 is not detected by the system while creating a new virtual machine in VMware.
In the hardware configuration, the network adapter type is set to use the VMXNET3 driver.
When the Windows 2012 installation is complete, after login the system the network icon located in the bottom right of the screen appears with a red X meaning no networks available. DHCP issues? Not exactly…
Checking the network adapter in the Network Connection panel, the folder is empty… what about the NIC configured in the virtual machine properties?
First question to wonder should be if VMware Tools has been installed in the system. The answer is the solution. From vSphere Client launch the VMware Tools installation.
Selecting the custom setup option, beneath VMware Device Drivers you can find the NIC type set for the virtual machine.
During the installation the driver is installed in the system.
After rebooting the server, everything works as expected and the NIC driver is now listed in the Network Connections.
VMware Tools should be always installed, not only because best practices strongly recommend it but several issues can be easily fixed in little time.
