When I installed the Windows 8.1 Previews, both Pro and Enterprise, on VMware Workstation 9 virtual machines, I found that the Windows Networking just didn't work right. It would try to work, but would then stall. Invoking other network activity
- even something like a web speed test - would magically wake it up.
With the help of the VMware people, we isolated the problem to be in the emulated Intel e1000e network interface.
The fix is trivally simple: Edit the .vmx file that describes the virtual machine, and change the virtual NIC from "e1000e" to "e1000". You'll end up with something like this:
ethernet0.virtualDev = "e1000"
-Noel
