topic Re: Workstation 16 pro license / activation code issue on Ubuntu 18.04 (latest patch level) in VMware Workstation Pro Discussions

Workstation 16 pro license / activation code issue on Ubuntu 18.04 (latest patch level)

alexbrucia — Sat, 21 May 2022 09:08:26 GMT

Hi all,

I bought a Workstation 16 pro license key some days ago, after succesfull payment I received the license key / activation code, but when I try to input the code an error pops up (Invalid activation code). How can I proceed? Thank you in advance and greetings from Italy. Alessandro

Re: Workstation 16 pro license / activation code issue on Ubuntu 18.04 (latest patch level)

louyo — Sat, 21 May 2022 11:07:36 GMT

Assuming you purchased from Vmware, you should be able to log into your account at Vmware and check your license. Otherwise, contact Vmware sales. This is a user helping user forum, not an official Vmware support site.

Re: Workstation 16 pro license / activation code issue on Ubuntu 18.04 (latest patch level)

continuum — Sat, 21 May 2022 12:03:39 GMT

Try to enter the serial with regedit instead.

Re: Workstation 16 pro license / activation code issue on Ubuntu 18.04 (latest patch level)

louyo — Sat, 21 May 2022 12:30:52 GMT

Not sure regedit works on Ubuntu?

version 18.04 is a little dated.

Re: Workstation 16 pro license / activation code issue on Ubuntu 18.04 (latest patch level)

alexbrucia — Sat, 21 May 2022 13:07:41 GMT

On Ubuntu Linux? Seriuosly? Thank you for spending your time trying to help me, by the way...

Re: Workstation 16 pro license / activation code issue on Ubuntu 18.04 (latest patch level)

continuum — Sat, 21 May 2022 15:18:04 GMT

LOL - sometimes reading the full post helps .... sorry.
Have you tried
sudo /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-enter-serial

Ulli

Re: Workstation 16 pro license / activation code issue on Ubuntu 18.04 (latest patch level)

alexbrucia — Sat, 21 May 2022 15:34:21 GMT

Thank you again Ulli, I tried, but got a segmentation error. Greetings, Alessandro

Re: Workstation 16 pro license / activation code issue on Ubuntu 18.04 (latest patch level)

continuum — Sat, 21 May 2022 16:02:54 GMT

Try
/usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-vmx --new-sn ABCDE-FGHIJ-KLMNP-QRSTU-VWXYZ

That seems to work on Debian 10

Re: Workstation 16 pro license / activation code issue on Ubuntu 18.04 (latest patch level)

continuum — Sat, 21 May 2022 16:33:42 GMT

If that still does not work close Workstation completely and try to edit
/etc/vmware/license-ws-160-e4-202001
The file should exist but the line
SERIAL = "12345-12345-12345-12345-12345"
may be missing.

Ulli

Re: Workstation 16 pro license / activation code issue on Ubuntu 18.04 (latest patch level)

alexbrucia — Sat, 21 May 2022 17:20:21 GMT

Thank you again Ulli, tried bot suggestion, I got no errors, but Workstation Pro refuses to run.

Re: Workstation 16 pro license / activation code issue on Ubuntu 18.04 (latest patch level)

continuum — Sat, 21 May 2022 17:32:03 GMT

What does refuse to run mean ?
Do you have files named license-ws-* in /etc/vmware
Which exact version do you try to run ?

Re: Workstation 16 pro license / activation code issue on Ubuntu 18.04 (latest patch level)

alexbrucia — Sat, 21 May 2022 18:01:14 GMT

I got stuck into the license activation panel, with a message "Invalid activation key". No way to step further.

# vmware-installer -l
Product Name Product Version
==================== ====================
vmware-workstation 16.2.3.19376536

(purchase date May, 17, 2022)

# lsb_release -a
LSB Version: core-9.20170808ubuntu1-noarch:printing-9.20170808ubuntu1-noarch:security-9.20170808ubuntu1-noarch
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 18.04.6 LTS
Release: 18.04
Codename: bionic

# uname -a
Linux otto 5.4.0-110-generic #124~18.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Fri Apr 22 12:01:21 UTC 2022 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Hardware is an 8 cores, 32 GB RAM, 32 GB swap, 1 TB SSD disk, Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-9700 CPU @ 3.00GHz

Player (free version) works perfectly, but I'm planning to use VMware suite for work, so I'm trying to upgrade to Workstation pro 16.x ...

I'll try contacting sales representatives, just in case something went wrong with my license activation key VMware sites today are experiencing some problems and service outages.

Thank you very much again for your very kind help and the time you spent on my problem, ciao from Italy,

Alessandro

Re: Workstation 16 pro license / activation code issue on Ubuntu 18.04 (latest patch level)

continuum — Sat, 21 May 2022 18:16:49 GMT

Please list the files you have in
/usr/lib/vmware/licenses/site/
and in
/etc/vmware

Ulli

[SOLVED]Re: Workstation 16 pro license / activation code issue on Ubuntu 18.04 (latest patch level)

alexbrucia — Sun, 22 May 2022 05:58:48 GMT

Thank you Ulli and all who helped me! Today my problem seems solved: licence activation code and input panel worked. I can not write a solution since I've done nothing different today, so I suspect some network or remote server problems during licence activation. Greetings from Italy!