The setting "Preferences... -> Show Tray icon -> Never" is not possible on Workstation 10.0.2.

[Lamaay]

Hello!

After updating to Version 10.0.2 is the Setting "Preferences... -> Show Tray Icon -> Never" not more possible.

My host system:

AMD FX-6350

Win7 x64 pro SP1

[Lamaay]

I have solved this problem.

The problem was most probably on my PC.

The registry entry "HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ VMware, Inc. \" was corrupt. And the program could not create the registry key "VMware Tray".

I have tried this with "Regedit", also did not work (of course with admin rights).

Then i have the registry entry "HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ VMware, Inc. \" simply deleted. And the program can create the registry key "VMware Tray" again.

May be it will help someone...

[cybersans]

hello.

i try that but no luck. the preferences always reset to 'always' and right click in tray icon and select 'hide permanently' also does not work.

[maxmaster]

Renaming vmware-tray.exe to something else while WS isn't running fixed this major annoyance for me.

[cybersans]

of course i can do that in the beginning, but at least i need something 'real' such as a patch or some workaround, maybe tweaking the .ini file/registry setting or whatsoever.

[Brindell]

Hi

Thanks to Lamaay and his fix/suggestion it set me on the correct path to fix this!!

Having tried the Lamaay fix by simply deleting the registry entry and letting VMware re-create it didn't help in my situation.

It was re-created every time but it was corrupted. Every time I tried to manually add a sub-key it would give me an error, so I deleted the key and manually created it.

Make sure VMware is running whilst you do this. (it may work if it's not running but I didn't try it that way)

Delete the mentioned corrupt HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ VMware, Inc registry entry

Then simply re-create this key yourself (right click on software key and select >new>key).

In VMware when you set the option "show tray icon" to never, VMware will now create and extra sub-key for you under the one you've just re-created.

This key will be called "VMware Tray" with a REG_DWORD value "TrayBehavior" set to 2.

Good Luck

[maxmaster]

It's "TrayBehavior".

[Brindell]

I've updated my post to satisfy your spelling correction 🙂

Regardless of this, as I've said in my post, VMware made this key for you and you don't have to modify anything in the VMware folder 🙂

[maxmaster]

_NOT_ fixed in 10.03.

[NoelC1]

Thanks to Lamaay and Brindell for the analysis and workaround!  I've been having to close that damn tray icon over and over and finally decided to try Google, which led me here.

For what it's worth, if you Export the VMware, Inc. key to a .reg file, delete the key from the registry, then re-import the .reg file by double-clicking it the problem of the inability to create the VMware Tray subkey is resolved.

I have no idea how one can create a corrupted registry key, but knowing the solution why won't the VMware engineers fix something as simple as this?

-Noel

[NoelC1]

This is still broken in 10.0.4 as run on Windows 8.1 Pro x64.

-Noel

[DocHouse]

Did you remove and re-create the registry key as described above? I just used the same method with the Workstation program completely closed and it worked. If you want an easier method, delete the key mentioned above, then use the attached reg file to re-create the keys.

[NoelC1]

Yes, as I describe above you mean?  Of course, that's the workaround, and it still is effective.

But the installation of 10.0.4 had caused the problem again, after having done this once before.

-Noel

[dxiv]

What worked for me in the 10.x versions was:

- right click the tray icon, select hide, click hide permanently;

- delete vmware-tray from HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run;

- reboot;

- add the setting mentioned in this thread ("TrayBehavior"=dword:2 under HKCU\Software\VMware, Inc.\VMware Tray).

With just the last step, vmware-tray still runs on each boot, but then closes right away.

[maxmaster]

NoelC1 wrote:

This is still broken in 10.0.4 as run on Windows 8.1 Pro x64.

-Noel

All the more reason to upgrade to WS 11 next month.:smileysilly:

Maybe in 11 not even the registry-workaround will fix it.

[NoelC1]

This is just as broken in version 11.

-Noel

[maxmaster]

Judging from the other threads, it's far from the only thing that's broken. :smileyshocked:

[NoelC1]

It seems to be working okay for me, save for this old bug.  It's actually fixed several things I was seeing problems with.

I guess my question is really this, though:  How does a bug like this make it past major release points?  Who deems this to be okay?

This is a really basic bug that affects virtually all Windows users (possibly across multiple versions) - a basic configuration feature of the software just doesn't work.  And I doubt it would be particularly difficult to fix.

I'd be embarrassed if my engineers allowed such a basic bug to go unaddressed across one or more major releases.  I might even consider disciplinary action.

-Noel

[NoelC1]

This is still broken in 11.1.0.

Every update I install I have to work around this problem by fooling with the registry.

-Noel

[maxmaster]

Can somebody please lift the "Assumed Answered"-flag?

While there's a workaround, the bug still exists.