Virtual Server freezes

Not strictly a DBA issue, but one I came across when trying to install SQL 2008 64 bit on a VMWare virtual server (under ESX 3.5).

Initially the install would crash, at random places, giving an alert saying:

“Invoke or BeginInvoke cannot be called on a control until the window handle has been created.”

I managed to get round this by expanding the setup windows to the max screen size and the install finally went through after a few more tries.

However, this wasn't the end of the problems. Simply opening up the management console and connecting to the localhost would freeze everything on the server - which was a similar issue that the IT support team were also experiencing on this server.

It seems that this is actually an issue with VM tools on a 64 bit machine, and affects the server if you are using the VIC console - it does not seem to affect remote desktop connections.

The fix is to disable the SVGA driver under device manager on the server - after which we've seen no issues.

Link to the VMWare Knowledge base article - VMWare KB article - I know it says ESX 4.0 but this also seems to be the case for ESX 3.5