Workstation 16.2.3 - Tabs

[junkmailbaby123]

Hello,

when suspending or shutting down a guest the tab disappears on the top and I have to find the tab in my library to start it again. I have two separate physical machine running workstation and on has this issue and the other doesn't.  how in the world do I get these tabs to quit disappearing on suspect\shutdown?

[continuum]

Compare preferences.ini of both hosts.

[Rober1]

I faced similar kind of issue last time, I am still searching for some proper solution. jcpassociates

[junkmailbaby123]

the preferences was my first go to idea as well I validated that before this post. but for peace of mind checked again just now. so I compared non-working with working, and every radio button and check mark is identical.

i'll check out the .ini next.

[continuum]

no differences in the actual file preferences.ini ?
thats a plain text-file.

[junkmailbaby123]

ok got the preferences.ini files and they are quite a bit different. any specific line I should be looking at you can think of?

[junkmailbaby123]

also just completely uninstalled and reinstalled issue still exists.

[junkmailbaby123]

any other idea's? I'm plum out

[bl6f00]

How about this: use the VMWorkstation GUI to find and select the desired virtual machine, then goto "VM -> Settings -> Options -> Power" and (un)check the option "Close after powering off or suspending"; repeat it for each virtual machine.

[bl6f00]

gui.exitAtPowerOff = "FALSE"

[junkmailbaby123]

bl6f00,

On the broken machine those settings are unchecked, I checked, & unchecked them to just simply toggle it and nothing changes.  I did the same thing on my machine that works, and I got the desired result of checked = tab disappears, unchecked = tab remains.  

the fix below

The string you suggested gui.exitAtPowerOff = "FALSE  is not present in either machine, but I did add it to the bottom of the preferences.ini file of the broken one.  with a restart of vmware it worked!

after a system reboot, it's broken again. ugh

[junkmailbaby123]

i'm thinking this this is a result of how the program is started... so as a startup script it runs the following

vmrun.exe -t ws start "c:\xxx\xxx\xxx\host.vmx.   this is specific to my broken machine.  and actually seems to be the reason why this is breaking.  when I turn off the start up script, and reboot the problem doesn't come back.

so with your help I think i've finally identified the root cause.  any idea how to remedy this? the startup script is a must. but I can alter how it opens up if there are any suggestions?

[amidarius]

Unfortunatelly i can confirm that this odd behaviour is still present (23rd Februrary 2024.) in VMware® Workstation 17 Pro, 17.5.0 build-22583795 and it appears that nobody at VMware just don't care about that ?!