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afdoughty
Contributor
Contributor

Uninstall and refund ..... blame Dell/MS

BACKGROUND

I did the pre-order and installed on my mac mini. The point was to get a couple of quirky Windows only programmes going on the mac via XP.

However, after installing XP from the Dell provided XP disk that came with my Dell desktop it became clear that XP was not going to let me run another copy of XP (it goes into 30 day trial mode and then it will demand a valid user licence code which Dell won't give and MS won't allow as they only want 1 copy running on my Dell machine).

This means I can't run XP on the Mac with VMware unless I go and BUY MORE MICROSOFT XP! Given that I hate MS I don't want to spend another $ on them.

UNFAIR REFUND TERMS .... BUT I CAN WAIT

Hence I now have uninstalled VMWare and asked for a refund (and may have to wait up to 30 days until after "general release"). As a matter of principle I don't understand why I shouldn't get my money back sooner but I imagine there was some small print somewhere saying that was the deal ...... just not a very fair one. I would have expected something more "transparent" from a non-MS company. I guess I will just wait until they decide to do a general release .... but what happens if they don't?

MY REAL QUESTION IS?........

How do I check that my Mac Mini doesn't still have a virtual machine installed in some partition? When VMware uninstalled it said it would not take any virtual machines off and I remember allocating 20GB to XP.

Thanks for the help.

For what it's worth, I would have liked this one to work for me and support it.

Andrew

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29 Replies
afdoughty
Contributor
Contributor

tirmidi

I am glad you agree. I am staggered that client service has been so poor. Now I have aired my views here, I have heard nothing from them. I expect my service levels to be non existant but at least others, particularly in the UK will be forwarned.

AD

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SMB1
Expert
Expert

Microsoft disagrees with you.

http://a248.e.akamai.net/f/248/3214/1d/www.zones.com/images/pdf/WindowsXPLicensingPrimer.pdf

7. Internal “Reassignment” of Windows XP Professional Licenses acquired from an OEM partner

Customers are not permitted to reassign an OEM Product which is acquired as preinstalled software on a

computer via an OEM partner without also transferring the desktop operating system upon which it is

installed. The desktop operating system product License that is purchased from an OEM is acquired with

the computer as a single integrated product and may only be used with the computer with which it was

licensed.[/b]

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dszpiro
Contributor
Contributor

Hi etung,

You say that the uninstall process does not touch the VM. I have been receiving the "insufficient permissions" error message when I try to open my Windows XP VM. If I uninstall Fusion and then reinstall will i (a) be able to try to open my existing VM, and (b) have a chance at fixing the problem creating the "insufficient permissions" error message?

WRT to (b), I guess what I am asking is it likely that the problem is with the VM or with Fusion? If it is the former, then uninstalling and reinstalling may be useless.

Thanks,

Danny

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RDPetruska
Leadership
Leadership

The "insufficient permissions" has to do with your user rights and the ownership of the files/folders on your host. Uninstalling/upgrading/reinstalling/etc. the VMware Fusion application has no affect on your virtual machine (documents). Just like uninstalling MS Word will not affect your created Word documents.

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dszpiro
Contributor
Contributor

Hi RDPetruska,

Thanks for that clarification. How does one restore users rights once the "insufficient permissions" notice is received? Do I have to delete the VM and start over?

Thanks,

DannyS

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RDPetruska
Leadership
Leadership

No, there should be a method for changing the ownership and/or changing the permissions on the files from your OS. I'm not sure how to do it on a Mac - whether you need to do it within Finder, or if you have to drop to a non-GUI session to do it (I wouldn't expect this, but one never knows, as OSX is riding on top of a BSD-derivative kernel).

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thf
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi...

To change permissions in the Finder, right-click (or control-key+click) on the file, select "get info" in the resulting context menu, at bottom you'll see "ownership and permissions". Click on the "Details" reveal-triangle, if needed, so you see popups for all three (owner/group/others) and set as desired. Close the window (ie, there's no "ok" button). You may be asked to enter your password, depending on the current "locked" status of the info.

Or, goto the Utilities folder inside the Applications folder and open a terminal window and do it the "old fashioned way" Smiley Happy

Tom

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dszpiro
Contributor
Contributor

Hi Tom,

Sadly, I tried that (see attached screen shot) and it didn't work.

What is the old fashion way?

Thanks,

DannyS

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thf
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi Danny....

Your screenshot makes it look like it's not the Virtual Machine that has the permissions problem, but some other file/folder being accessed during the startup process. I'm not a VMware expert and have no idea what file(s) that might involve.

BUT... if you did a normal install of VMware itself, and a normal creation of your VM, it's hard to see how this situation arose in the first place.

It might be that various permissions were set wrong by other installations or by other running software at some earlier date, and that they were therefore wrong when you installed VMware.

If that's (part of) the problem, you can try two things: reset the permissions on the computer to their Apple-default state and see if that helps OR, reset them and then uninstall/re-install VMware (NOT your VM - that's a lot more work than I'd recommend without knowing a lot more about your situation).

In any case, make a backup of your VM.

You can re-set the permissions to their default state with the Disk Utility in Applications/Utilities. The "First Aid" section will let you both verify/repair permissions on a system-wide level, and verify the disk, as well. To repair the disk, though, if that's necessary, you have to boot from the install disk that came with your computer. The Disk Utility program is accessible from the menubar of that install disk (you "quit the installer" but will still be booted from the install disk, and can then run the Utility).

The VMware folks, or some knowledgeable user, may know more about what specific files might need their permissions checked, but since the problem shouldn't arise in the first place, it might be better to re-install (once you are in this sort of anomalous situation, fixing it piece-by-piece often doesn't work, in my opinion).

Tom

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Andreas_Masur
Expert
Expert

I am glad you agree. I am staggered that client

service has been so poor. Now I have aired my views

here, I have heard nothing from them. I expect my

service levels to be non existant but at least

others, particularly in the UK will be forwarned.

Well...I don't want to make any excuse here but I know that last week was the VMware World and Pat Lee[/url] (who is the one you would need talk to) was certainly quite busy. May be you want to drop him a PM...

Ciao, Andreas

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