Support for hibernation

[toeside]

I've read a few threads on this forum about guest hibernation support in Windows, but no clear answers as to whether or not it is officially supported, particularly on Windows 8.

I've discovered that it's possible to enable guest hibernation in VMware Workstation by removing the plugin vmsvc\disableGuestHibernation.dll, so that the vmware tools service does not set power information on startup to disable the hibernation feature (ReserveHiberFile = FALSE).  This indeed does allow me to enable hibernation (powercfg /h on) such that the hibernate option appears in the start menu.  Works for Windows 7 and 8.

However, although Windows properly resumes from hibernation (I can see expected driver output in Windbg, which tells me the OS is back on its feet), the VMWare console does not show the desktop.  It's just a black screen.  Verified this behavior on Windows 7 x64 SP1 and Windows 8 x86.  The only option is to force shtudown the VM (power off).

[WoodyZ]

The only option is to force shtudown the VM (power off).

That is not necessaraly the only option and frankly it's the worst thing you can do!  Forcefully killing the vmware-vmx process is a very good way to trash the Virtual Machine and quite possibly beyond repair.  I learned a long time ago to, at a minimum, always have a backdoor setup to be able to issue a reboot/shutdown command over the network in an attempt to resolve an issue before forcefully killing the vmware-vmx process.  I also usually have RDC enabled as another avenue to deal with issues that might arise and again try to keep from having to forcefully kill the vmware-vmx process.   Sometimes one will have no choice but to forcefully kill the vmware-vmx process however it is not something I'd do lightly unless you have a proper backup of the Virtual Machine to restore from if/when it gets trashed because of the use of force!

Also have you tried just closing or killing the VMware Workstation GUI and then reopen it and see if it will attach back to the back-end process with a normal screen not the black screen?

[toeside]

I've been powering off VM's abruptly as a last resort for years and never had the VM state corrupted - sure it can cause problems with the guest OS, but this has never actually manifested into a real problem for my purposes.  I realize it's not ideal in terms of the guest OS, but I don't understand why this should have any impact on the VMWare host process at all.  I'm not sure what you mean by killing processes - if clicking the red "stop" button in Vmware is "killing" a host process, that seems like bad software design.  I would think that pressing that button just blows away whatever guest OS state is active.

I'm not sure I understand your suggestion, maybe I've not explained my setup (I use local VMs).  Closing the VMWare UI on the host OS would force shutdown my active VMs.

[WoodyZ]

Sorry, I must have misread your OP, I thought you were going into Task Manager and killing the vmware-vmx process and this has the potential to and can and will corrupt the virtual hard disk, not necessarily every time.  As far as force stopping with the red button yes this only effects the Guest OS not the virtual hard disk.

As to closing the VMware Workstation GUI if you have more then one VM running then this is not really an option although for VM's that have VMware Tools installed the VM should be properly shutdown by that action although again if you have more then one running I wouldn't do it.

To protect the Guest OS and Guest OS Filesystem on the VM instead of abruptly stopping it with the red button you can use vmrun to issue a shutdown or reboot command or another option is ssh into the VM and issue a shutdown or reboot command.  Or use RDC/VNC to connect to the Guest OS and issue a shutdown or reboot command.

[toeside]

Thanks for the suggestions on a graceful shutdown, but this doesn't address my question in this thread, which is :  Is guest hibernation supported in VMWare workstation?  If so, why does VMWare UI show a blank/black screen in the console upon resume from hibernate state?

[WoodyZ]

but this doesn't address my question in this thread, which is :  Is guest hibernation supported in VMWare workstation?

I didn't address it because since I do not ever allow either the Host or my VM's to hibernate I do not know the direct answer to that question.