VMQ Offload Support Change After NIC Driver Update in Hyper-V Virtual Switch on Windows Server 2022

Goal: Determine whether disabling Virtual Machine Queue (VMQ) on a Hyper‑V virtual switch eliminates intermittent Connection Pool Exhaustion events under high network load, while quantifying any resulting throughput change for workloads that rely on hardware offload.

Constraints: The host runs Windows Server 2022 with Hyper‑V Integration Services matched to the OS build, and the NIC firmware must remain compatible with the driver version being evaluated. The impact of VMQ disabling on specific workloads (e.g., high‑throughput SMB or RDMA‑like traffic) is uncertain, and alternative per‑adapter VMQ tuning may be required to retain partial offload benefits.

Questions: Does disabling VMQ consistently prevent Connection Pool Exhaustion spikes during peak traffic? What is the expected throughput penalty for VMQ‑dependent workloads after VMQ is turned off? Are there intermediate VMQ settings (e.g., limiting queue count) that mitigate pool exhaustion without fully disabling the feature?