vmwareuser.exe does not run at startup

[bamahutch]

I have Windows 7 running on VMWare Fusion 3 on a Mac OS X v10.6.6. I was having an issue where copy/paste and drag and drop wouldn't work between the Mac and Windows instance. Multiple monitors wouldn't work either. I discovered that if I run VMWarreUser.exe then all this functionality works.

I looked in my startup programs and VMWareUser.exe is there, but it obviously isn't running. So I ensured that it is set to run as administrator for all users and I shut down, tried restarting also, but the application still doesn't run.

Does anyone know how I can get VMWareUser.exe to run at startup???

[admin]

Hi bamahutch,

Try reinstalling VMware Tools -- it certainly should be auto-starting. If it still doesn't, take a look at your Windows Event Viewer to see what might be blocking it.

Let us know how that goes!

Stephen Gardner

Desktop Technical Support Specialist

VMware Inc.

[bamahutch]

Thanks for the response!

I should have mentioned that I tried the reinstall already. The event viewer doesn't have any helpful information. Any other thoughts?

In order to run this program manually in Windows 7, I have to agree to the popup that appears asking if the program can make changes. Could that have something to do with why it won't run automatically?

[admin]

Hmm, the User Access Control (that popup) shouldn't be interfering with Tools, but it's certainly possible. You can try disabling it, or lowering the setting, as per this Microsoft article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/975787.

One other thought: Do you have Windows set up so that you automatically log in? If you log in too quickly after your computer was last shutdown, VMware Tools can fail to start. Have a look at this article: http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1014988.

[bamahutch]

I disabled the UAC and VMWareUser.exe ran successfully at startup. However, I do not want to keep my UAC disabled so I re-enabled it. I then created a scheduled task to run VMWareUser.exe when any user logs in and restarted my PC. The program ran successfully from my scheduled task.

So, it being in startup with UAC enabled will not work for me, but adding a scheduled task to run the program will. Weird, but an acceptable solution.

Thanks for your help!

[admin]

Glad I could help! As I mentioned earlier, UAC shouldn't be keeping VMwareUser.exe from running ... but I'm glad you found some workarounds!

Here's one more way that might help: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc709691%28WS.10%29.aspx#BKMK_S2

To summarize, you can go to the properties of VMwareUser.exe, and set it to always run as an administrator (like you did for the service, but for the app instead).

[bamahutch]

That was actually the second thing I tried (first was reinstalling the vmware tools) before I submitted the post. It didn't help either.

Thanks again for your help!