Streaming not working in Player 5.0.0 and 5.0.1 on Windows

[jeremyd2019]

On a Windows XP host, I upgraded from Player 4.0.4 (where this worked perfectly) to 5.0.0, and the following command line now fails:

c:\current_directory> c:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Player\vmplayer.exe http://myhost/vmware/streaming_vm/streaming_vm.vmx

Gives an error that it can't find the VM c:\current_directory\http://myhost/vmware/streaming_vm/streaming_vm.vmx

I checked the release notes and did not see that the streaming feature was removed, and I checked the "Getting started" guide at http://www.vmware.com/pdf/desktop/vmware_player50.pdf and it still documents how to use this feature (on page 36 and 37).

Is this a bug in Player 5?  I had to downgrade back to player 4.0.4 for now, since this is a key feature that I use every day.

Message was edited by: jeremyd2019 changing subject to reflect that it's not just on windows

Message was edited by: jeremyd2019 changing subject to reflect that it is now a windows-only issue in 5.0.1

[jeremyd2019]

The behavior is as described on a Windows 7 host, not just XP.  And on a Linux host (Ubuntu 12.04, to be exact), I get a different error message:

Error opening virtual machine http://myhost/vmware/streaming_vm/streaming_vm.vmx: Configuration file problem.

In the vmware-player-xxxx.log, it says

I120: SNAPSHOT: SnapshotConfigInfoReadEx: Creating new snapshot dictionary, '/home/myuser/vmware/streaming_vm (myhost)/streaming_vm.vmsd'

I120: SNAPSHOT: SnapshotDiskInfoGet: No filename for 'ide0:0'.

I120: SNAPSHOT: SnapshotConfigInfoReadFromDictionaries failed: Configuration file problem (11)

I120: SNAPSHOT: SnapshotConfigInfoReadEx failed for file '/home/myuser/vmware/streaming_vm (myhost)/streaming_vm.vmx': Configuration file problem (11)

So it looks like the Linux version is getting a little further, but is also broken.

Next week I will try to get a Workstation 9 trial, and see if the issue dupes there as well.  If so, perhaps vmware would be more responsive to a potential sale than they are to someone complaining about their free stuff

[jeremyd2019]

Just saw Player 5.0.1 and Workstation 9.0.1 were released, and tried this again.  Streaming is now working in Workstation 9.0.1 in Windows, and Player 5.0.1 in Linux, but Player 5.0.1 on Windows is still broken.  I get a message box:

Error while opening streaming virtual machine:

C:\current_directory\http:\myhost\streaming_vm\streaming_vm.vmx

I think there's some sort of Windows path sanitation of command arguments to vmplayer.exe which is getting in the way of streaming.  Apparently this was fixed up for vmware.exe in Workstation, but was missed in vmplayer.exe.