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5 Replies Last post: Jun 26, 2009 11:05 PM by SimplyBea
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Active Debugger

Mar 4, 2009 4:21 PM

Click to view daveeeeeed's profile Lurker daveeeeeed 3 posts since
Mar 4, 2009
Hi guys,

I'm using an Intel MacBook and am trying to run an old game (Civilization II: Test of Time) on my Windows XP SP3 virtual machine with VMWare Fusion 2.0. It doesn't want to load and I get the error message "This application cannot run with an active debugger in memory. Please unload the debugger and restart the application".

Clearly the app is badly written with a faulty restriction designed to stop it being edited or debugged, however I'd love to know if there any way of getting round this easily - short of setting up a separate BootCamp partition on my Mac to run the game in isolation.

Any help or workarounds here would be gratefully received.

NB: There is an existing thread (http://communities.vmware.com/thread/121098?tstart=9405) about this but with a fix that is both unproven and complex to those of us not versed in editing .vmx files. If this is the only fix, how do I go about doing this?

Thanks in advance,

Dave
Reply Re: Active Debugger Mar 4, 2009 4:44 PM
Click to view etung's profile Guru etung 11,027 posts since
Oct 15, 2006 VMware
Without knowing exactly what they're looking for, it's impossible to say how to circumvent it :p However, the link you found is the only practical thing I think you can try. What are you confused about when editing a .vmx file? Finding it? Making the edit?
Reply Re: Active Debugger Mar 4, 2009 4:53 PM
in response to: etung
Click to view daveeeeeed's profile Lurker daveeeeeed 3 posts since
Mar 4, 2009

Thanks for the reply - where can I find the .vmx file to edit, and at what point in the file do I need to add: 

monitor_control.restrict_backdoor = "TRUE"


Cheers

Reply Re: Active Debugger Mar 4, 2009 4:58 PM
in response to: daveeeeeed
Click to view etung's profile Guru etung 11,027 posts since
Oct 15, 2006 VMware
where can I find the .vmx file to edit

See A Beginner's Guide to VMware Fusion or Information Gathering for VMware Fusion

and at what point in the file do I need to add:

After any line in the file, it's unsorted. I'd suggest the end, make sure it's on it's own line and that you're not making this edit when Fusion is running.
Reply Re: Active Debugger Mar 4, 2009 5:09 PM
in response to: etung
Click to view daveeeeeed's profile Lurker daveeeeeed 3 posts since
Mar 4, 2009

Thanks - tried editing the .vmx as per the instructions that but when I restarted the virtual machine I was told to re-activate my copy of Windows... I've now removed the monitor_control.restrict_backdoor = "TRUE" line and it starts up fine.

Thanks for the help anyway.

D.

Reply Re: Active Debugger Jun 26, 2009 11:05 PM
in response to: daveeeeeed
Click to view SimplyBea's profile Novice SimplyBea 8 posts since
Jun 30, 2008

I have the same problem trying to run my MahJong solitaire game in XP on Fusion 2.0.4 - and have tried to understand your solution but remain confused???

  1. So - did you re-install Fusion and XP?
  2. Did you first include the command line "# monitor_control.restrict_backdoor = "TRUE" "
# and then remove it???

Sorry - not really game to tackle the 'back end' of any app - so just trying to understand what I have to do........

thanks

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