Always the same date on guest

[Cattivo]

Hi guys,

for my VMware Workstation Player 16 I already disconnected time sync betweehn host and guest. Now I would like to set a permanent date on my guest. This needs to be as soon as I boot it. Is there a way to do this and to never let the guest know the real time?

David

[RaSystemlord · Accepted solution]

There are many things in operating system functionality that are based on time progressing. There are also many applications that work based on that. I don't think that the computer ever cares about "the real time" - when you run something in Internet, "real time" might be something useful for some functionality.

If you literally mean "the same date", meaning a day in calendar, that is an operating system matter. You have not specified what it is. I'm sure you can run some script to set it up, to 1.1.2000 or whatever but that is operating system specific. Still, when time progresses, the date will change, at least when 24 hours has gone past, unless you run the script again, which may affect things in your applications, which are unknown at this point.

Also, "as I boot it", is not an exact time in a sequence of getting into a user getting logged in after powering on the system. Yet, again it is operating system specific when you can run something. Not sure if this has any relevance to you, but in Puppy Linux you can remaster the binary files that are used in the initial start of the OS (much before basic loads of the system programs or functionality, like initializing file systems). If it is OK to run the script, when user has logged in, that is easily possible in every OS.

As a summary, in the most simple case, use some scheduling that OS in question has and run a script that sets the date or time or both. More complicated matters are speculated in the above. I hope this explains somewhat.

[bluefirestorm]

Have a look at this thread.

https://communities.vmware.com/t5/VMware-Workstation-Pro/Keep-different-system-date-within-VM/m-p/91...

[Cattivo]

Thank you for your elaboration. I understood the first half of it. I am certain that I don't make joy to the platform when I out myself as a low educated user. My wish probably wasn't explained well enough. Yes, I would like the time to go on but with every sessions I would like to be in a time window for a trial software to be working. The company behind this software is long gone but the software has certain aspects that no competitors provide. The last straw I have is an old trial version which works for 14 days.

So I would like to start the VM, use the software, shut it down and want to move on on these projects later.

Isn't the vmx-file entry posted by bluefirestorm exactly what I need?

Thanks

David

[Cattivo]

Thanks for the link. I already tried this but when I edit the vmx-file with notepad/editor (as administrator) and save it, the Workstation Player recognizes it as a corrupt file. I researched for ways to fix a corrupt file but didn't came to a solution.

Have you experience with this problem?

Thanks

David

[RaSystemlord]

You can always ask, this is the idea here.

However, this is a Forum of (mostly) commercial software and we cannot discuss how to by-pass trial version restrictions of some other commercial software. With commercial software, the basic idea is that you pay for them.

Since you are talking about old software, there is a very likely chance that you find Open Source software, which is much better than your old commercial software. If Windows doesn't provide it, try some Linux, like Kubuntu or Ubuntu. By default, you get and see much more software than with Windows. For instance, Ubuntu Studio has basically tens of different tools for all creative aspects (photography, video, music, players, writing, graphics) and many others can be downloaded. There are many more dedicated distros.

Now that you already use VMware, there is no practical limit how many different systems you can try out.

[bluefirestorm]

Assuming you are using a text editor (such as Notepad on Windows) and that entries you added are valid, the "corrupt VMX" error coud mean that an entry or several entries presumably pasted in at the end already exists. In this case, tools.syncTime or time.synchronize.tools.enable might already be there. Anyway, check the existence of every entry instead of just doing a simple copy/paste to the end of the vmx file.

The order in which the entries appear does not matter.