Workstation Player 15 in Horizon View - vmx86 service cannot find the file specified

[michaellynchBSD]

We have some IT learners that want to use Workstation Player 15 in our VDI environment. I have installed it onto an App volumes app stack, but upon testing the vmware authorization service wont start, i get the following error:

Error 1068: The dependency service or group failed to start

I then tried starting its dependencies and noticed that another would start:

net start vmx86 gave me the error 'The system cannot find the file specified'.

The vmx86.sys file is where it should be and it has the correct version when i check the details.

Just to confuse things more, the service runs ok when i have the app stack in provisioning mode but when it is assigned to a user it fails.

[sjesse]

This really isn't a good idea, one because unless you modify the parent image correctly, workstation won't work at all. The other concern I have is the workstation service may conflict with the view agent, which may be want your running into.

You best bet if your really want to try this is try virtual box, I've seen that work in a normal horizon clone, but its not that quick. The option that may work for appvolumes is try writeable volumes, but they users will have to install it them selves.

[michaellynchBSD]

Learners are taught using workstation player, so teaching them with virtual box would be a massive learning curve and isn't really an option as i dont even know how to use virtualbox myself.

To begin with all their VMs are set up with vmx files and that would mean getting them all to create virtualbox files instead.

[sjesse]

ITs not something that would be supported by VMware for either product, but as I mentioned you could try writeable volumes and see if that helps. Also if these are linked clones, try placing workstation player on the parent image, that "may help". The problem you will probably run into is the vm won't start because it can't see. Do some research on how to enabled nested virtualization on esxi, there are a few settings you need to make sure are enabled, that aren't by default. There are possible issues with this tough, so I'd test.