VMware Tech Support: Media Center 12 crashing in Windows XP Pro VM Guest OS

[rizlaw]

VMware Tech Support:

Using VMware Workstation 6, I created a WinXP Pro Guest OS under an Ubuntu Linux 7.04 Host OS. I installed a multimedia program called "Media Center 12" by J.River.

Media Center 12 works well in the Guest OS, except for one major problem: whenever I attempt to enter "Theaterview" mode in Media Center 12, the program crashes and tells me that the offending module is "media center 12.exe."

I have posted the problem on the J.River Forum

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=41148.0

and JimH, one of the Principals at J.River noted that "TheaterView" uses 3D drawing mode which may account for the problem in the Guest VM.

JimH advised me that the J.River folks are willing to provide a free MC12 license to VMware to assist in tracking down the problem and fixing it, if possible.

Can this be done?

Message was edited by:

rizlaw

[RDPetruska]

Have you enabled the experimental 3D graphics in your Workstation guest? See the user manual for details on how to enable it.

[rizlaw]

RDPetruska,

I followed the manual at pp.322-23 and enabled 3d on the VM and Guest.

I also tried (as per page 323, paragraphs 4-5) adding and removing "vmmouse.present = FALSE" in the .vmx file. Since I do no gaming, I found that not including "vmmouse.present = FALSE" provided a very slightly more stable mouse, but still unusable.

In all cases, I was successful in getting Media Center 12's "TheaterView" to display, but the mouse was highly erratic (it appeared and disappeared, as well as froze for seconds at a time) and my processor utilization was between 75-100% at all times. It was impossible to select anything with the mouse.

Any further ideas on how to tame the mouse?

[rizlaw]

Two further questions. On page 323, paragraph 4 of the manual, it is suggested that the following optional line(s) be added to the .vmx file: "svga.vramSize = 67108864".

I added the above line which is supposed to increase VRAM to 64MB to reduce "thrashing in the guest."

However, it also states that this can be increased to 128MB, but there is no table or example to show what the number would be for 128MB.

Q1. What is the number to use for 128MB

Q1. What does "thrashing in the guest" mean?

[RDPetruska]

>Q1. What is the number to use for 128MB ?

134217728

Calculation = #MB VRAM * 1024 * 1024. Refer to knowledgebase article 1003 (setting custom video resolutions in a Windows guest) for examples of the calculations - note that these are using the maxWidth and maxHeight parameters, but using simple algebra you should be able to figure out the appropriate formula.