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starless72
Contributor
Contributor

Same VMware Tools for different hosts?

Hi, I created a Windows XP virtual machine using VMware Fusion on MacOS X, where I also installed VMwareTools.

Now I'm going to use that same VM in VMware Player 3 on a Windows XP host.

Will I need to reinstall the Tools, or do they stay the same across hosts?

Actually, my doubt arises from the fact that I already tried running that VM in VMware Player, and it seems to run fine, except for a problem: the first time I run certain proprietary applications after starting the VM, the VMware Player window (which usually is at full screen) is resized to a very small size, and this sometimes also makes the application crash. I was hoping that this could be fixed with a reinstall of VMware Tools... but I need to install VMware Workstation to be able to reinstall the Tools, so it can be time-consuming and I was looking for a confirmation before proceeding.

Thanks.

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gbullman
Expert
Expert

I have a virtual machine that was initially set up on Fusion (2.x) and then migrated to Fusion 3.0.1 / 2 with the needed Tools upgrades along the way. I now move that VM between Fusion 3.0.2 and Player 3.0, soon to be 3.0.1. I was getting prompts to update Tools on the Player side, but the upgrade just never happened. I've turned off checking for Tools updates in Player for now and will rely on Fusion updates to update tools. I've had no issue with the VM in either environment.

Could it be that the proprietary application is assuming a certain screen size and behaving as you described because the VM has a different size set up. I too wish there were an easier way to update Tools in the Player environment. Even give us a download that we can pull down to the VM, that would be fine.

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starless72
Contributor
Contributor

I don't think this can be caused by screen size assumptions: the Player windows is resized to a very small size, something like 640x480, while the application usually needs large screens, it really can't be used at such a small resolution. And it doesn't do anything like that on real machines, or even in the same virtual machine when used in VMware Fusion.

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gbullman
Expert
Expert

FYI, there is a way to get to the Tools install without actually installing Workstation. See this thread I started for that need.

It is not clear to me that there is any newer version of Tools than what is installed by Fusion 3.0.1 / 3.0.2. Best I can tell my VM intermittently wants to update Tools when running under Player. In my case I'm going to live with the occassional prompt to update Tools for now.

starless72
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks, I extracted the tools iso from the Workstation installer, then uninstalled the tools which Fusion installed and replaced them with the Workstation version.

Unfortunately this didn't solve my window auto-resizing problem :-/.

Very strange: the VMW Tools from Fusion were version 8.2.4, while the ones from the current Workstation version are 8.1.4.

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