VMware Communities: VI Client 2.5 only supports 32bit OS?

Reply Re: VI Client 2.5 only supports 32bit OS? Dec 14, 2007 11:09 PM

in response to: jlauro

akemp 22 posts since
Nov 8, 2004 VMware

Jlauro,

Thanks for your email. The poll was conducted based on asking the question how many customers need 32-bit support for the client under a 64-bit host.

We will have support for this and also a true 64-bit client somtime second-half next year.

Regards,

Andre Kemp
Sr. Product Marketing Manager

Reply Re: VI Client 2.5 only supports 32bit OS? Dec 15, 2007 12:00 AM

in response to: akemp

mcwill 396 posts since
Mar 13, 2006

6-12 months, ouch that's a lot longer than I had expected. Or is this the timeframe for a supported solution with an unsupported patch available much sooner?

Unfortunately in order to use VC under a foundation license we have been forced to install 2.5, this now means that I have to start a 32bit VM to manage/monitor our infrastructure which I'm sure you would agree is not ideal to put it lightly.

Reply Re: VI Client 2.5 only supports 32bit OS? Dec 15, 2007 2:29 AM

in response to: mcwill

akemp 22 posts since
Nov 8, 2004 VMware

Mcwill,

A unsupported patch is in the works, the timeline I gave was for a fully supported version. One of our customers has found a workaround themselves, so you can try this as well: If the customer on question wishes to post the details on what they did I'll leave it up to them. Below are the high-level steps

***The below procedure is not supported by VMware***Implement at your own risk***

1. Set the client installer to Windows 2000 compatibility mode
2. Get access to an MSI editor
3. Open the MSI installer with your editor and removed the setup routine which checks for a 64-bit platform
4. You should be able to install the client completely, with no errors

*****Above procedure is not supported by VMware******

Again using a VM in workstation is something that can alleviate the situation in the short term, so being "forced" to delay implementing a virtualization solution, which reaps tremendous benefits is not realistic, since you do have other options to manage the environment using a workstation VM.

Again I understand this is not the preferred solution and we will have support in the near future based on our own internal roadmap, which not only encompasses just getting a client to work, but also have the proper development and support processes available. Look for 2nd half of 2008 for this, which by the way fits perfectly into some of the previous comments about 64-bit workstations becoming commonplace in 2009.

Regards,

Andre Kemp
Sr. Product Marketing Manager - APAC

Reply Re: VI Client 2.5 only supports 32bit OS? Dec 15, 2007 7:32 AM

in response to: akemp

mcwill 396 posts since
Mar 13, 2006

akemp wrote:
Mcwill,

A unsupported patch is in the works, the timeline I gave was for a fully supported version. One of our customers has found a workaround themselves, so you can try this as well: If the customer on question wishes to post the details on what they did I'll leave it up to them. Below are the high-level steps

***The below procedure is not supported by VMware***Implement at your own risk***

1. Set the client installer to Windows 2000 compatibility mode
2. Get access to an MSI editor
3. Open the MSI installer with your editor and removed the setup routine which checks for a 64-bit platform
4. You should be able to install the client completely, with no errors

*****Above procedure is not supported by VMware******

Yes I saw a posting of this yesterday, however I hit the same problem as the original author. The package installs correctly, but when attempting to log into the VC the client GPFs with the following error...

Error Connecting

is not a valid Win32 application. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x800700C1)

Again using a VM in workstation is something that can alleviate the situation in the short term, so being "forced" to delay implementing a virtualization solution, which reaps tremendous benefits is not realistic, since you do have other options to manage the environment using a workstation VM.

I'm afraid you misunderstood me, I used "forced" in the context of being forced to upgrade to 2.5 in order to use our new VC Foundation license. But don't worry, it happens to me a lot my communication skills aren't that great

Currently we are using a workstation VM to manage the system, but it does dull the benefits offered by VC 2.5.

Regards,
Iain

Reply Re: VI Client 2.5 only supports 32bit OS? Dec 15, 2007 4:19 PM

in response to: mcwill

akemp 22 posts since
Nov 8, 2004 VMware

Iain,

Thanks for the reply. As for the GPF, this is what I was referring to a few posts back, about how we have run into issues with some of the components in the 64-bit host environment. Our client has changed significantly compared to previous versions, so that is one of the reasons it worked with no issues in previous releases. We have seen development issues with our new client on a 64-bit host, so due to other priorities the engineers put in the blocking issue to prevent installing the client.

It appears right now the most valid work around is to run a 32-bit VM until we have our 64-bit client available sometime 2nd half next year.

Regards,

Andre Kemp
Sr. Product Marketing Manager - APAC

Reply Re: VI Client 2.5 only supports 32bit OS? Dec 15, 2007 7:45 PM

in response to: akemp

mystereman 42 posts since
Aug 30, 2006

Andre,

I really think you missed the boat on this one. No, maybe there is only a small percentage of people using 64 bit OS's when measured as 32:64 ratio, but as measure of Companies with only 32 bit:Companies with mostly 32 bit and some 64 bit, I bet that ratio is significantly higher. By not supporting 64 bit, you're saying to all those companies that only have some 64 bit systems "We don't want you to upgrade to 3.5".

Reply Re: VI Client 2.5 only supports 32bit OS? Dec 17, 2007 3:43 PM

in response to: mystereman

larstr 2,380 posts since
Mar 11, 2004

dup

Reply Re: VI Client 2.5 only supports 32bit OS? Dec 17, 2007 6:52 PM

in response to: larstr

Schorschi 743 posts since
Jul 6, 2005

The short-sighted development of VMware continues to amaze me. In this day of .NET based application development, you have to go way out of your way to not get 32bit and 64bit applications by default. This can mean only one thing, VMware has code that is so low level, that is designed so bad, they don't want to rewrite it? What other conclusion is there? They had to have a reason, and I am sure it was in some part based on VMware refusing to embrace Windows operating system in any serious way, they prove this day in and day out. I would be surprised if even 5% of VMware's entire development resources are Windows savvy. I believe this, given the absolutely horrible performance and scaling that VCB and VirtualCenter, which are effectively Windows based solutions.

Reply Re: VI Client 2.5 only supports 32bit OS? Dec 17, 2007 8:09 PM

in response to: Schorschi

mcadler 2 posts since
Nov 14, 2007

I got VI Client 2.5 running on Vista 64 bit today. It took some effort. The first steps are outlined above.

Run the installer. While it is sitting in the error message about needing a 32 bit OS find and copy "VMware Infrastructure Client 2.5.msi" in a subdirectory of the system temporary directory.
Find an MSI table editor. You can get one called Orca from a Microsoft SDK. (Search for orca.msi.)
Using orca, open the .msi file and delete the LaunchConditions steps from InstallUISequence and from InstallExecuteSequence. This new .msi file will install the program.
Trying to connect to a VM will now probably fail. This is because it needs to run in a 32 bit managed environment and the default is 64. You can either change the entire machine state to default to 32 bits using "c:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\Ldr64.exe setwow" or use corflags.exe from Visual Studio to set the 32 bit env flag on the VI Client binary itself, using "corflags VpxClient.exe /32BIT+" in "C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\Infrastructure\Virtual Infrastructure Client\Launcher". The corflags solution is cleaner since it only has to be done once and affects only VI Client. I assume the ldr64 command would have to be done after each boot and it is a global change.

Good luck. We shouldn't all have to do this. It would be trivial to make an installable version with these changes.

Reply Re: VI Client 2.5 only supports 32bit OS? Dec 18, 2007 12:27 AM

in response to: mcadler

mcwill 396 posts since
Mar 13, 2006

Perfect!

Step 4 was what I was missing before, but with your instructions I have now been able to run the VI client under Vista x64.

Thanks,
Iain

Reply Re: VI Client 2.5 only supports 32bit OS? Dec 18, 2007 8:03 AM

in response to: Schorschi

david.hittner 6 posts since
Sep 30, 2005

I also find the lack of 64-bit support rather short sighted. I suspect quite a few administrators run WinXP x64. WinXP x64 certainly makes testing VM configurations easier by running VMware Server and using the extra memory of your workstation (mine has 8GB). But regardless...

I find it a bit disconcerting that when given strong community feedback that "you've broken software with a mandatory upgrade" that the response was not "whoops, we'll put out a limited patch right away due to technical difficulties, and bring it up to full support in the next release", but rather has been "it shouldn't have worked in the first place, so you'll have to wait until we re-engineer it and release the new version in H2". We have to wait 6+ months for restored functionality??

Kudos for agreeing to fix the problem in the long term, but I really think we need a patch in the interim. Issuing a patch would also improve your credibility in the era of multiple Virtual software vendors. :-))

Reply Re: VI Client 2.5 only supports 32bit OS? Dec 18, 2007 10:20 AM

in response to: david.hittner

Randy_B 159 posts since
Feb 1, 2005

I agree that Vmware should make an immediate effort to build a patched version of the client that will run on a 64 bit Windows platform. If it can be done with a few hacks, a patched version, even unsupported, would not be a huge effort to make. While running another VM is a workaround, it also requires another Windows license, which is not trivial.

As far as polling the user community, I have been very involved with Vmware over the last 4 years and no one ever asked me what platforms our administrators are running.

Reply Re: VI Client 2.5 only supports 32bit OS? Dec 20, 2007 12:49 PM

in response to: Randy_B

clay_combs 4 posts since
May 4, 2005

I agree Vmware should fix this immediately. I was slammed with this today after my VC 2.5 upgrade. If the client worked on x64 in v2.0 they shouldn't have disabled it in v2.5.

Reply Re: VI Client 2.5 only supports 32bit OS? Dec 20, 2007 4:38 PM

Crowey 15 posts since
May 31, 2006

Personally I think the big issue is that it only runs on Windows.

I'd love to see the client run on Unix/Linux; if VC could at least use MySQL or some other non-Microsoft db, would be awesome (VC on Unix/Linux would be even better); ANY Macintosh support would be fantastic.

32/64 windows client support ... minor (though admittedly not trivial) issues in my book.

Reply Re: VI Client 2.5 only supports 32bit OS? Dec 21, 2007 2:25 PM

in response to: Schorschi

akemp 22 posts since
Nov 8, 2004 VMware

Schorschi,

Thanks for your comments. I guess short-sighted would be Vmotion, Storage Vmotion, 1st to offer vSMP, 1st to offer 64-bit guest support, 1st to offer shared memory model and many more. I've explained - in detail - the why, support is coming soon.

I don't agree at all with your MS comments as we support more MS operating guest's than anybody - including experimental support for Windows 2008.

Market forces and resources always have an impact on the development roadmap.

Regards,

Andre Kemp
Sr. Product Marketing Mgr. Apac
--
Pardon the brevity, sent from my handheld

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