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My Windows 7 firewall (the one by Microsoft that is shipped with the OS) is configured to block all inbound and outbound connections by default. Because all outbound connections are blocked, I manually need to add exceptions for all programs that I want to allow outbound access. This is working fine except with VMware Player 12.0.

Whenever I boot into Windows 10 with the VMware Player, it says: "No Internet access". Once I disable general blocking of all outbound connections, Windows 10 can connect to the Internet just fine with VMware Player. But I don't know why it doesn't work with outbound connections blocked. I have added exceptions for all executables and services related to VMware Player that I could find.

Here is a list of all the outbound exceptions I added. The following executables are allowed outbound connection:

c:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Player\drvInst64.exe
c:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Player\mkisofs.exe
c:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Player\vixDiskMountServer.exe
c:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Player\vmnat.exe
c:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Player\VMnetDHCP.exe
c:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Player\vmplayer.exe
c:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Player\vmUpdateLauncher.exe
c:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Player\vmware-authd.exe
c:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Player\vmware-kvm.exe
c:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Player\vmware-remotemks.exe
c:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Player\vmware-shell-ext-thunker.exe
c:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Player\vmware-unity-helper.exe
c:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Player\vnetlib.exe
c:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Player\vnetlib64.exe
c:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Player\vnetsniffer.exe
c:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Player\vnetstats.exe
c:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Player\vprintproxy.exe
c:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Player\zip.exe
c:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Player\OVFTool\ovftool.exe
c:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Player\tools-upgraders\VMwareToolsUpgrader.exe
c:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Player\x64\vmware-vmx.exe
c:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Player\x64\vmware-vmx-debug.exe
c:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\VMware\USB\vnetlib.exe
c:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\VMware\USB\vnetlib64.exe
c:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\VMware\USB\DriverCache\vnetlib.exe
c:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\VMware\USB\DriverCache\vnetlib64.exe

Since the Windows 7 firewall requires a new rule for each and every executable, this was quite a pain to set up. Additionally, I have added exceptions for the following services:

VMware Authorization Service (VMAuthdService)
VMware DHCP Service (VMnetDHCP)
VMware NAT Service (VMware NAT Service)
VMware USB Arbitration Service (VMUSBArbService)

This is all I could find but unfortunately, it still doesn't work. Windows 10 is unable to connect to the Internet with VMware Player. As soon as I disable general blocking of all outbound connections, it's working fine.

So I'm wondering what could be the cause of this? Is there anything else that I have overlooked and that I need to put on the whitelist for VMware Player to be able to connect to the Internet?

Note that I'm looking for a solution with the Windows 7 firewall. I'm not interested in installing a third-party firewall but I want to use Microsoft's firewall.

Thanks!

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  • I know. But I want to have all outbound connections blocked.
    – Andreas
    Nov 24, 2015 at 21:57
  • ah, misunderstood.
    – Moab
    Nov 24, 2015 at 22:20
  • I use Windows Firewall Control software to do this (paid version), it is a skin for the windows firewall and is much easier to add exceptions.
    – Moab
    Nov 24, 2015 at 22:22
  • As I said, I'm looking for a solution without any 3rd party tools. I'm also want to understand why it currently doesn't work.
    – Andreas
    Nov 25, 2015 at 16:27

1 Answer 1

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To answer my own question, I examined the logfiles and found that VMware installed another two executables into the system directory:

C:\Windows\SysWOW64\vmnat.exe
C:\Windows\SysWOW64\vmnetdhcp.exe

Adding these two executables to the firewall exceptions solved the issue.

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  • Nice detective work.
    – Moab
    Nov 30, 2015 at 21:49

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