Installing VMware Tools on macOS 10.12.3 Error

[bbastion]

I have macOS 10.12.3 running on VMware Fusion 8.5.4, however when I go to install VMware Tools, I get a compatibility error and the package will not install.  I was able to get around this by installing it with Pacifist, but I was curious if there are some problems that I'm not aware of here? Is there a way to install this directly without having this complaining from the installer?

[RDPetruska]

You may want to try updating to 8.5.5, to fix a CVE vulnerability, and I believe some tools issues.

[bbastion]

Good suggestion, but it still fails on VMware Fusion 8.5.5 (5192483):

[bbastion]

In addition, Unity will not allow itself to be enabled. Dynamic resizing works, but not Unity. Also cannot close the display and leave the VM running. Seems that VMware Tools is generally broken in this regard, but yet some of it works.

[pw22 · Accepted solution]

bbastion​

I had this exact error (8.5.5 trial, 10.12.3 host and guest) and managed to fix it. For me the wrong ISO for macOS 10.12.3 tools was being mounted when selecting Virtual Machine|Install VMWare Tools.

To fix:

1. In the guest, in Finder eject the VMWare Tools CD.

2. In VMWare Fusion, select Virtual Machine -> CD/DVD (SATA) -> Choose disk or disk image

3. In the file selector - mine was already open in the right folder - isoimages.

4. Select 'darwin.iso'.

5. Select Virtual Machine -> CD/DVD (SATA) -> Connect CD/DVD

6. The CD image mounts in Finder, install as normal.

For some reason, for me the iso being auto-mounted was 'DarwinPre15.iso' which didn't install.

The isoimages are in the VMWare Fusion.app file so if at step 3 you are not in the right folder you will need to copy that folder somewhere first (as the .app bundle is not selectable in the .iso file picker). In Finder in the host, open Applications, right click VMWare Fusion.app, select Show Package Contents, open Contents, open Library, you will see isoimages, *copy* it to somewhere like your desktop and continue from step 4 above.

Hope this helps.

Paul

[MrFixit99]

FWIW, you can navigate into normally inaccessible folders by type <cmd-G> in the file picker dialog, then typing your path.  In this case, it's "/Applications/VMware Fusion/Contents/Library/".  TAB-completion works too, but if there are multiple items that start with the string you've typed, the 1st item will be chosen.  This is different from the bash shell, which will flash at the first TAB and print a list of possible completions at the 2nd TAB.

[bbastion]

This is exactly the issue. Thanks for pointing that out. I never even thought to look into whether or not there was another macOS / darwin iso floating around. So VMware needs to either get rid of that iso or work on their detection logic! After mounting the correct darwin.iso it installed perfectly.

Unfortunately Unity display is still not working.

[dariusd]

Interesting.  Does your virtual machine settings indicate the correct guest OS?  This is what we use to choose which Tools .iso to attach.  To check, go into Fusion's Virtual Machine menu, choose Settings..., then choose the General category, and inspect the second field, OS.  For that virtual machine, it should be set to macOS 10.12.  (The Name might also be macOS 10.12 or something else entirely; It is not relevant.)

If the OS setting is incorrect, it might be that the VM has been upgraded from an earlier version of OS X without updating the OS entry here in the VM's settings.  (There are other possible causes, but this would seem the most likely; The next most likely would be if the VM was created with an earlier Fusion release which did not fully/yet support macOS 10.12.)

Regardless, if you have attached the other .iso and installed Tools that way, you should be good to go... No need to reinstall if you changed the ​OS​ setting.

macOS (and OS X) guests have never supported Unity.

Cheers,

--

Darius

[pw22]

It is interesting! Mine was set to OSX Server 10.6 and believe me - I did not choose then when installing. I have set it to the correct version and 'Reinstall VMWare Tools now selects the correct ISO. So there's a bug there - but in saving the right OS version in some cases on install.

Thanks,

Paul

[dariusd]

Very strange.  How old is the VM?  Do you remember how it was originally created and with roughly which version of Fusion?  Anything noteworthy you can think of that's happened to it since it was created (e.g. upload to/download from ESXi server, restore from backup, usage with another virtualization product, usage of any other tool or program that runs on the host that manipulates the VM)?

I've not recently seen any egregious mistakes with storing the guest OS identifier, so I'd rather like to figure out how your VM got into that state.

Cheers,

--

Darius

[Shivs]

Has any one deployed vm from templates for MAC  OS X 10.12....I have supported mac hardware however the VM deployed from templates are in no boot??