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mattad
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Difference between central "config.ini" and "settings.ini" ?

When I go (under Win 7) to directory:

C:\ProgramData\VMware\

then there are a couple of sub-directories. Two of them or of particular interest:

VMware Player
and
VMware Workstation

Since Vmware renamed a couple of month ago VMware Player into VMware Workstation player the first subdirectory is deprecated.
So only VMWare Workstation is active.

Correct?

In both of the subdirectories mentioned above two files are stored:
config.ini


and


settings.ini

Whats the difference?

Third question:
Are all parameters for *.vmx files valid for these two files as well?

Matt

2 Replies
continuum
Immortal
Immortal

>Are all parameters for *.vmx files valid for these two files as well?
No - the config.ini can be regarded as the systemwide configuration of Workstation / VMplayer while a vmx-file is just the config of a single VM.
Settings.ini is a new file that has appeared a few versions ago. I guess it was intended for parameters that apply to all VMs of a user.
Open a vmware.log from one of your VMs,
It logs the order in which these ini-files are accessed while starting a VM
The interaction between those ini-files is not consistent.
Sometimes parameters in config.ini overrule entries in the vmx.
Sometimes it is the other way round.
Most of the times vmx-parameters in the config.ini file will be ignored - and only a very small number of paraeters exist that actually do anything in config.ini

Sumary:
config.ini : configure the way Workstation uses memory, configure updates and not much more
preferences.ini : sets GUI-parameters per user
settings.ini : - unknown - seems to be mostly unused
I have more details on this topic on my website - see http://sanbarrow.com/vmx.html


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

mattad
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

@continuum:

Thank for the overview.although its sad that it seems to be pretty fuzzy.

Too many "sometimes" and no clear precedences

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