Can't get Unity working in Windows 7 and Ubuntu 64-bit

[NetBox_Blue]

Running Windows 7 Professional 64-bit as the host, Ubuntu 10.04.1 64-bit as the guest. After installation and updating everything (including VMWare tools) when I try to Enter Unity I get the following error:

The virtual machine cannot enter Unity mode. Check that Unity is supported for this guest operating system and the latest version of VMWare Tools is installed.

This is running on a Thinkpad T410S with VT turned on. I have also tried with 32-bit Ubuntu and the same problem occurs. I have attached my vmware.log. I have also shut down and restarted host and guest.

Thanks.

[mdunn-vmware]

That log shows that the UI tried to set up a connection to the VM, but Tools weren't running yet so that connection failed. Could you run Player again and get the error, then post the UI log? The path to that log is shown in the about box. Thanks!

[NetBox_Blue]

Thanks, attached is the UI log after a clean shutdown/restart of host and guest. It still seems to have trouble connecting to something.

[mdunn-vmware]

Something is blocking Player from opening a connection to the VM, so that's why unity won't work. One cause that we've seen a few times is Sprint mobile broadband software. If you have any software like that, could you try updating it? Another thing to test is temporarily turning off anti-virus or anti-malware programs, and see if unity works then.

[NetBox_Blue]

I'm not sure what the exact problem was, but disabling Microsoft Security Essentials and reinstalling VMWare Player fixed it.

[NetBox_Blue]

...and it turns out it's not actually fixed. VMWare Player will put guests into Unity mode after I reinstall (repair) the VMWare Player installation, but once I reboot my host I get the error message in the first post (until I reinstall again). Is there some service it tries to start when the computer boots that may not be working properly?

[mdunn-vmware · Accepted solution]

The authorization service is part of the process, although if that

service isn't running, Player will say that that's the cause. But to

double-check, run "net start vmauthdservice" from an elevated command

prompt and see if that gets the service running.

If that services

runs OK, and the connection is still being blocked, then you need to

disable, remove, or update whatever software is blocking it.

[NetBox_Blue]

Thanks mdunn-vmware, that was the clue I needed. After investigating some more I found my problem was the same as http://communities.vmware.com/thread/93168. The reason that VMWare auth service was not running after a reboot was because the __vmware__ group was not getting 'Log on Locally' permissions. The reason that that was happening was because my group policy (I'm on a domain) did not allow changes to be made to that User Right. Fortunately I'm the domain administrator, so after giving the __vmware__ group the 'Log on Locally' right everything works fine.