"VMware Workstation does not support the multiple monitors feature in Other guests"

[Scorwin]

When I click on the "Cycle multiple monitors" icon, I get the message "VMware Workstation does not support the multiple monitors feature in Other guests".  Google found me no hits on this.  Anyone know what it means or how I might get multiple monitors to work?

The host OS is Windows 7 Professional x64, with service pack 1 applied.  The guest OS is Debian Linux, version 8, also 64-bit. 

$ uname -a

Linux debianvm 3.16.0-4-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.16.7-ckt9-3~deb8u1 (2015-04-24) x86_64 GNU/Linux

The virtual machine was originally created with VirtualBox, then exported to a .ova file, then imported into VMware Workstation.  VMware Workstation is version 11.1.2 build-2780323.

-Steve

[dariusd · Accepted solution]

Hi Steve, and welcome to the VMware Communities!

With your VM powered off, go into your VM's settings, and on the Options tab, under General, select the guest operating system type: Linux > Debian 7 64-bit.  Then try powering on your VM and seeing if it works.  (Debian 8 is close enough to Debian 7. )

Cheers,

--

Darius

[Scorwin]

Hi Darius,

and thank you for your quick reply.  I haven't been able to try it because I wasn't able to even log in to Windows, but once that was cleared up I was finally able to try your suggestion and it worked.  After that I got a message that multiple monitors wouldn't work until I installed VMware tools, so I followed the instructions on http://partnerweb.vmware.com/GOSIG/Debian_8.html to install open-vm-tools. After rebooting VMware prompted me to install VMware Tools, so I followed the instructions it provided and installed that too.  Then, after rebooting the VM again, the top menu now has a button for "Choose a monitor layout" and choosing a layout causes the VM to use multiple monitors exactly the way I want it to.  Sweet!

Thanks for your help,

Steve