Can no longer open my VMs in Vista

[bwgordon]

I can no longer open any of my virtual machines on my Vista (SP2) laptop using VMWare Workstation 6.5.3. It doesn't matter which VM it is: Ubuntu 8.04 Desktop, Ubuntu 8.04 Server, Windows XP Pro, or XP Home. The Workstation program starts normally, but when I try to open a VM, it creates the lock directory and lock files and that's it; nothing else happens. No error messages appear, there is no vmware-vmx task in the task list, and the system tray shows no VMs running. The Windows application log does not show any errors. I've tried most of the suggestions in the Knowledge Base without success. I have 3 GB memory and 26 GB free on my hard drive. When I last used these VMs more than a month ago, they worked fine.

Here is what I've tried:

Opening in VMWare-nothing

Double-clicking on the .vmdk file in Explorer-nothing

Starting from the command line-nothing

Creating a new VM from scratch-nothing

Repair VMWare installation-nothing

Uninstall and re-install VMWare-nothing

Here is the UI log:

Oct 27 12:09:54.167: vmui| Log for VMware Workstation pid=516 version=6.5.3 build=build-185404 option=Release

Oct 27 12:09:54.168: vmui| Host codepage=windows-1252 encoding=windows-1252

Oct 27 12:09:54.474: vmui| HostDeviceInfo: Failed to enumerate host parallel ports via the registry. Could not open device map parallel port registry key.

Oct 27 12:09:54.579: vmui| HOSTINFO: Seeing Intel CPU, numCoresPerCPU 2 numThreadsPerCore 1.

Oct 27 12:09:54.579: vmui| HOSTINFO: This machine has 1 physical CPUS, 2 total cores, and 2 logical CPUs.

Oct 27 12:09:56.214: vmui| Foundry Init: setting up global state (0 threads)

Oct 27 12:09:56.214: vmui| Vix_InitializeGlobalState: Use Preference. vixLogLevel = 0

Oct 27 12:09:56.214: vmui| Vix_InitializeGlobalState: vixDebugPanicOnVixAssert = 0

Oct 27 12:09:56.214: vmui| Vix_InitializeGlobalState: vixLogRefcountOnFinalRelease = 0

Oct 27 12:09:56.214: vmui| LOCALE windows-1252 -> NULL User=409 System=409

Oct 27 12:09:56.214: vmui| VixHost_ConnectEx: version -1, hostType 3, hostName (null), hostPort 0, options 515

Oct 27 12:09:56.377: vmui| LOCALE windows-1252 -> NULL User=409 System=409

Oct 27 12:09:56.514: vmui| VMListReg::Listener - Initial registry scan completed.

Oct 27 12:09:56.698: vmui| Releasing the multi-instance Mutex.

Oct 27 12:10:34.224: vmui| Reloading config state: C:\Users\Brent\Software\VMWare\Appliances\ubuntu8041desktop\Ubuntu.vmx

Oct 27 12:10:34.319: vmui| VMHS: Transitioned vmx/execState/val to poweredOff

Oct 27 12:10:42.747: vmui| CVMUIApp::MenuButtonClicked: 0 C:\Users\Brent\Software\VMWare\Appliances\ubuntu8041desktop\Ubuntu.vmx

Oct 27 12:11:36.145: vmui| Reloading config state: C:\Users\Brent\Documents\Virtual Machines\LabVIEW 2009\LabVIEW 2009.vmx

Oct 27 12:11:36.211: vmui| VMHS: Transitioned vmx/execState/val to poweredOff

Oct 27 12:14:25.350: vmui| CVMUIApp::MenuButtonClicked: 40041

The dates on all of the vmware.log files are more than a month old, indicating that they are not being updated when I try to open a VM.

[continuum]

typical Vista feature ...

can you still run the VMs in vmplayer ??? - if not :

uninstall Workstation

reboot

read kb 1308 and run clean-up tool from that site

make sure you delete preferences.ini and config.ini

reboot

disable all Antivir

enable all networkcards

rename Workstation-setup*.exe to setup.exe

redirect %tmp% to C:\temp

disable UAC

run the renamed setup.exe as administrator

cross your fingers

if that still does not work - do yourself a favour and get rid of Vista

___________________________________

VMX-parameters- VMware-liveCD - VM-Sickbay

[Tom2k8]

Failures can be caused by many causes:

1. Recent system (windows) and/or program (office) updates might interfere with VMWare.

2.Your computer might have fallen victim to malware. Even the tightest protection isn't safe enough. -- Try to do a scan using your antivirus or even MalwareBytes.

3. 26 Gb free on your drive isn't very much; try to use cleanmgr or even CCleaner to get rif of your temporary bits.

[bwgordon]

VMPlayer does just like Workstation: creates the lock files, then nothing. When I try to close the VMPlayer it pops up with the message "The Virtual Machine is busy." I have to go into Task Manager to kill it.

Following KB1308 and reinstalling did not fix it.

As for Vista, I plan to switch to Win7 this weekend. In the meantime, I'll try Workstation 7.

Re: Tom2K8

MalwareBytes doesn't find anything. I'm guessing that some update Microsoft pushed out is what killed VMWare.

I was hoping that this was a known problem.

[bwgordon]

Apparently the problem is some stupid Vista firewall issue. To get Workstation working, I had to disable the firewall, open a virtual machine, then re-enable the firewall. After that everything works fine.