During the VM configuration, you must select the adapter type and the network it will connect. Depending on the VM compatibility and the guest OS, the supported NIC types are the following:

• E1000E: Default adapter for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012, it emulates the Intel 82574 Gigabit Ethernet NIC.
• E1000: Driver is available in most newer guest OS and emulates the Intel 82545EM Gigabit Ethernet NIC.
• Flexible: Identifies itself as a Vlance adapter, an emulated version of the AMD 79C970 PCnet32 LANCE NIC. Most 32-bit guest OS have the driver for this NIC type. When installing VMware Tools, the adapter changes to the higher-performance VMXNET adapter.
• VMXNET: Optimized for VM performance, it requires VMware Tools installed to provide the driver.
• VMXNET 2 (Enhanced): Based on the VMXNET adapter, it provides high-performance features such as jumbo frames and hardware offloads. It's supported by a limited set of guest OS.
• VMXNET 3: This offers all the features available in VMXNET 2 and it's a paravirtualized NIC designed for performance. Multiqueue support (known as RSS in Windows), IPv6 offloads, and MSI/MSI-X interrupt delivery are some of the additional features offered by this adapter. It requires VM hardware version 7 or later, and it is supported by a limited set of guest OS: