VMWare personal use license

[Trustmepete]

Hi, 

I'm trying to get a VMWare personal use license. For the last couple of days, when trying to register for one, I keep getting the following (attached) error message - not the most helpful of error messages. I've tried using different browsers (Safari and Chrome), to no effect. Does anyone have any ideas on how I can get a license? This is driving me mad!

[ColoradoMarmot]

you need to run a browser with no adblock/cookie blocking plugins.

[Trustmepete]

I'm not. I've even dialled down Chrome's privacy controls so that it accept third-party cookies. It is still not working. 

[ColoradoMarmot]

very odd - maybe try private/incognito mode?  Or install firefox so it's completely clean.

[Trustmepete]

I give up. I think I'm just going to pay for Parallels. So far: I've tried Chrome, Safari and Firefox on OSX; I've dialled down the security controls on all of my browsers; I've turned off my AV (in the event it was doing something funky); and I've spun up a Linux instance in a Parallels trial (oh the irony), using Firefox, to no avail. Each time, with the same unhelpful 'something has gone wrong' message. Sorry VMWare, I'm not going to lie: this has been a terrible experience!

[Chris_McKenna]

I remember this error as this also occurred to me as well. 

What the issue really is: the type of account at time of registering is the root cause. 

The method to register for the personal account is different than the business related account thus, the error message will always pop up. It's not a browser related issue. 

The personal account for free license is under a whole other website URL. 

To resolve: delete the account. 

Then find the address (escapes me at current) for the personal license and re-register under that and follow the on-screen prompts.
The website will then give you a license code which shall be input into a field at the prompt. 

A download dialogue drop down or pop up menu will appear. 

Download and install it. Upon opening, input the personal license code issued by the generator. 

That's what worked for me - I figured it out as to what was causing the issue from reading some forums. 

In my case, i had used their business section to fill out the user account info to which, once you do that, you cannot register for the free personal license version of VMware. That's all it is - it's the type of account that doesn't match the type of license file.

Regards,
CM

[Trustmepete]

Thank you Chris.

I've just tried doing that. I've unregistered and I have a confirmation email that my account has been deactivated. However, it won't let me re-use my email address. Bizarrely, it accepts my credentials, but then forwards me to another page where I'm not logged in. It could be a synching issue, so I will try again later today. There is something fundamentally wrong about how user access works. I'm guessing that some of the back-end systems aren't fully integrated. I wonder how many phantom accounts are being maintained by VMWare. 

If there are any VMWare people reading this, can you please get someone to fix it.

[Chris_McKenna]

You're welcome.

The whole VMware registration for their free to use / personal license is very obfuscated and not very transparent. I say this because, I saw a lot of people on other forums and others I've helped on YouTube, had had zero luck with navigating the VMware website. This is why there's frustration amongst the user base to the point of driving people to the competition.

I went back in to view my registration and, I can confirm that, I had to use another email address. I'd forgotten that I too, encountered what you've experienced with the initial email credentials being problematic. 

You will have to use another email address for certain. Confirmed. 

Sorry about that earlier - I completely forgot about that. 

Regards,
CM