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Tornaci
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Copy paste not working in VMWare Workstation 15 Pro after the 15.0.3 update

Dear VMWare workers,

I recently updated my VMWare Workstation pro 15 to 15.0.3 and since then copy paste does not work for me. Can you guys please fix it?

Kind regards,

Tornaci

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VMLMC
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I was in the same boat.

VMware® Workstation 15 Pro          15.0.4 build-12990004

VM's in question:

windows 10 Pro

window 7 pro

The only difference:

All of my unshared VM's worked fine copy/paste OK

My windows 10 Pro     and window 7 pro that were SHARED were the culprits.

After going through all of the usual, uninstall vmtools / re-install yada yada, I finally unshared the VM's.

Copy / paste started working again. You don't happen to be using your VM's in a shared environment?

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bonnie201110141
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What host operating system and guest operating system are you running? Do you do copy/paste with files or texts? Please describe a little more details about your scenario. Thanks a lot!

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wila
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Hi,

These type of issues are almost always due to a broken VMware Tools install.

Do not try a repair install from within the Guest OS as it likely will not fix this, unfortunately the "Reinstall VMware Tools" from the drop down menu also falls in that same category.

You really need the guest OS to reboot inbetween uninstall and install to make sure that all the files from VMware Tools are in the correct locations and of the correct version.

In short follow these steps:

  • Uninstall VMware Tools
  • Reboot guest OS
  • Install VMware Tools
  • Reboot guest OS.

--

Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
Tornaci
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My host operating system is Windows 10 Enterprise 64bit and the guest operating system the Windows server 2019 Datacenter. I tried copying some files but it does not work.

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VMLMC
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Contributor
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I was in the same boat.

VMware® Workstation 15 Pro          15.0.4 build-12990004

VM's in question:

windows 10 Pro

window 7 pro

The only difference:

All of my unshared VM's worked fine copy/paste OK

My windows 10 Pro     and window 7 pro that were SHARED were the culprits.

After going through all of the usual, uninstall vmtools / re-install yada yada, I finally unshared the VM's.

Copy / paste started working again. You don't happen to be using your VM's in a shared environment?

___________________________________________________________________________

Did you find this helpful? Let us know by completing this survey (takes 1 minute!)

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Tornaci
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Thank you. After reinstalling the VMware tools it worked like a charm.

JimBurd
Contributor
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Thanks!  The uninstall/re-install solved my copy/paste problem, too.

-Jim

pyhoff
Contributor
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Guys just add the missing entries to the <vm>.vmx file. See https://www.tenforums.com/virtualization/134350-vmware-15-1-0-copy-paste-issue.html

shut down the system, open <VM>.VMX in your favorite Text editor and find the isolation.xxxx. settings. Add which ever of these is missing:

isolation.tools.copy.disable = "FALSE"

isolation.tools.dnd.disable = "FALSE"

isolation.tools.paste.disable = "FALSE"

isolation.tools.hgfs.disable = "FALSE" (may already be set)

and lo and behold you can now copy and paste from the host to the guest and vice versa

wila
Immortal
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Hi,

While I am happy that you found a way to resolve your issue, for users of VMware Workstation Pro, I recommend to use the UI options that set these particular lines in the .vmx over manually editing them.

pastedImage_0.png

VMware Workstation Player does not have these options and you would have to resort to editing the .vmx, but ... AFAIK the defaults are to allow copy & paste and drag & drop.

It should not be needed to add those lines.

Needless to say it is good to have the extra info here in this thread.

More troubleshooting info can help, so thank you for adding your solution.

--

Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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pyhoff
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May not be documented, but fixed my issue with my latest Kali VM download and did not need to re-install my VMware-tools. As the saying goes "There is always more than one way to skin a cat ".

Smiley Happy

Cheers

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RFMurphy07
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Thank you.  It worked.  Only seemed to have the issue with Ubuntu 20.04.

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abennett1024
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I've tried all of the suggestions mentioned here.

Did an uninstall of VMWare tools, restarted the guest, and did a re-install of VMWare tools and get the same results.

I'm using VMWare Workstation 15.5 Pro.  The guest is W10.

VMWare Tools is Version 11.0.6

Thank you,

Aaron

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davisco
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It looks like that it should be one vmtoolsd process running w/o any arguments and by the SYSTEM account. Then at login there should autostart another instance of vmtoolsd with "-n vmusr" argument and running by the logon user account. In my case this was disabled in the Autostart tab in Task Manager (W10 guest). Alternatively start vmtoolsd -n vmusr in command line after logon.

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gregcoaly
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Repair install (started from under guest) of Vmware Tools worked today. No restart was needed.

Using VMware Workstation 15 Player 15.5.7 build-17171714.

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jhuntvmware
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I am wanting to set up copy and paste between host and vm.  host is win 11 x64  and i set up win 7x32 running on virtualbox 6.0

in try to solve, i also loaded VMware Workstation 16 Player.  (did not load windows into this program, i thought it was a tools program for solve using virtualbox).

want to sway files and would also like to access my network connected printer in the win 7 vm.  appreciate any help solving.  Basicially, I have not been able to see the other system when using file explorer in either environmemt..

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Terence_Liu
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Hi,

I also encounted same problem when use Vmware Workstation 16 player + win 11

I try two version of Windows. 

Win11 needs to install vm-tool for fixing. 

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jhuntvmware
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i am having trouble installing vm tools.  can someone pls give me the download file location and procedure?  thanks so much

using win 11 and workstation 16.2.3 build-19376536

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elies_jebri
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Worked for me thanks

added to <VM>.vmx file

isolation.tools.copy.disable = "FALSE"

isolation.tools.dnd.disable = "FALSE"

isolation.tools.paste.disable = "FALSE"

isolation.tools.hgfs.disable = "FALSE"

 

i have Workstation Pro : 16.2.1 build-18811642

gest OS Ubuntu 22.04

Host OS : Win 10

Seems that checking gest isolation DnD boxes in the UI doesn't add these lines to the vmx file !!!!

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danjforest
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I am using VMWare Player 16.2.4 build 20089737 and found no .vmx file, only a .vmxf file, and there were no isolation.tools.copy...  entries to add/edit. I was having similar issue copying files from host to c:\program files\xxx under Windows 10 32-bit. After many attempts, I found the solution to first copy files from host to C:\TEMP or similar folder on the local drive on the VM, then copy from there to the final destination, and that solved the issue.

Dan

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abrahamlrouse
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im having the same issue on linux host has anyone fixed it the new version 17.5.0 is what im using reinstalling open-vm-tools DID NOT WORK the new version came out this month or last month

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