vmware server bridge networking not working - VM guest can not get to LAN router, but host can

Can't get to the network from a guest via bridged connection to DSL router. The host can get to the lan just fine. Trying to setup to use static IP addresses on the DSL with guest VMs.

Equipment and versions:

• Host OS: W2K3 SP2
• VMWare server console: 1.0.3 build-44356
• Westell 7500

• Fixes tried:
  • Tried connecting second network connection to the router.
  • After booting guest OS, setup ping from host to guest, and tried each vmnet sequentially. vmnet2 started working.

Research:

• Google: vmware server won't bridge
• Google: vmware server bridged network not working
• Google: vmware server bridged network not working static
  • VMWARE Server 2.0 Bridging not working
    • To be specific the issue we are having clients on the network are unable to ping, access, or otherwise reach any of the guest OS's. When I access the Guest systems through VMware they either say "Limited or no connectivity" or that they are connected because they have a static address. But even with a static adress the Guest OS's can't talk to each other or anything on the network and vic versa, even the host OS.
      • Host OS: Windows Server 2003 x64, Service Pack 2
      • Guest OS's: Windows Server 2003 x86, Windows XP x86 SP2, Windows Vista x86. (All Guest OS's have the same issue)
    • Possible answers:
      • I had the same issue. I found that changing the host adapter in Virtual Network Editor from "Bridge to automatically chosen adapter" to actually choosing the specific adapter fixed the problem. - Tried this but it didn't seem to help. Even tried a second network adapter hooked to the DSL router.
  • Quick fix for broken VM guest network connection running in VMWARE server
    • Suggests restarting the VMWare Servder NAT service - My problem is trying to get to static DSL IP addresses from the router running in bridge mode
      • Another method to restart the service, is from the command prompt on Windows by running the following command (NOTE: must include quotes):
        • net stop "VMware NAT Service"
        • then to restart the service:
        • net start "VMware NAT Service"

    • Been tearing my hair out with the exact same problem for over a week now, but the problem has been with a guest using a bridged NIC. setup as follows: - Hardware: Dell PowerEdge R200 with 2 Broadcom NetExtreme G/Bit NIC's Host: Windows 2003 R2 SP2 running VMWare Server 1.0.5 (was running 1.0.6) Role: 2 x NIC RRAS server Guest: Windows 2003 R2 SP2 Role: 1 x NIC intranet web server The guest VM would have full network connectivity 1 day, then randomly loose connectivity with all other nodes on the LAN, restarting the guest didn't sort the problem, resarched the issue on VMWare communities and came up with a problem with the NIC's installed on the server in that the Broadcom NetExtreme NIC's must have the following options disabled in the driver advanced properties tab: - CheckSum Offload, Large Send Offload This appeared to initially corrected the problem, for a couple of days atleast, VMWare Server 1.0.6 update released upgraded fine, all still working, then random lost of guest network connectivity again, downgraded back to VMWare Server v1.0.5 everything worked again, went away happy, attempted to access the server and it's lost connectivity again. came accross this post thankfully even though it was relating to NAT on the VMNet8 interface, it got me thinking... so disabled the option "Automatically choose an available physicall network adapter to bridge to VMNet0" from the Host - Virtual Network Settings - Automatic Bridging tab, and suddenly everything starts working again... Jobs-a-good-n!!! Hope that this helps someone else out. Pieman