Disable Memory Balloon in VMWare VM

This post is to explain the steps to disable the memory balloon driver in VMware Virtual Machine. The memory Balloon driver will be installed in the virtual machine with the help of VMware tools. The memory balloon driver named vmmemctlvmmemctl (Memory balloon driver) works with the server to reclaim pages that are considered least used or less valuable by the guest operating system.

Disable Balloon Driver

Disabling balloon drivers can be done by editing the configuration parameter of the virtual machine.

1.Power down the virtual machine.
2.Right Click the virtual machine and  click Edit Settings
3.Go to Options Tab > Advanced > General

Click on Advanced Parameters and Click Add Row and add the below name and values.

sched.mem.maxmemctl  = 0  to disable the balloon driver.

Enable the Balloon Driver

To re-enable the Balloon driver of the particular virtual machine.Browse towards the virtual Machine Configuration file that .VMX file and remove the below entry

sched.mem.maxmemctl = “0”

Save and Exit from editing. The memory balloon driver is enabled.

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