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eyeless
Contributor
Contributor

Retina in macOS El Capitan under Fusion 11.5

I upgraded to the latest VMware 11.5 running it on an updated macOS Mojave where I wanted to test my macOS El Capitan virtual machine and it looked great and things worked fine including retina resolution and proper scaling of the single window. Then I wanted to check if I could use a shared folder and was told to install VMware tools (which automatically installs on Windows virtual machines normally, but not here). After installing VMware Tools and rebooting the retina resolution was gone and only had a very tiny screen that could not be scaled – when enlarged it looks very bad. So I tried to uninstall VMware Tools again and maybe live without sharing folders, but the retina resolution was impossible to get back and now the resolution is stuck at 1024x768 and cannot be changed in any obvious way at all. Tried all screen change settings accessible without any effect. Also really need shared folders for how I hope to work with this in Catalina and guess that would be a major selling point having this work smoothly when Catalina ships, but looks like maybe I have to switch myself and my customers to Parallels ... or is there a solution?

6 Replies
tabanger
Contributor
Contributor

I have the exact same problem with an El Capitan guest under Fusion 11.5.  Apparently, the VMware Tools 11.0 doesn't install a working graphics driver for El Cap guest, and so you are stuck with only 1024x768 resolution.  I tried reinstalling VMware Tools several times.

After I reverted to Fusion 11.1.1, and reinstalled VMware Tools 10.3.10 on the guest, everything was back to normal for the display resolutions.

wila
Immortal
Immortal

Hi,

FYI, here is a direct link to the VMware Tools package from Fusion 11.1.0

https://softwareupdate.vmware.com/cds/vmw-desktop/fusion/11.1.0/13668589/packages/

--

Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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jmvr
Contributor
Contributor

I gave up too :

- Went to time machine to restore Fusion v11.1

- Restored a snapshot taken just before upgrade of VM to v11.5 tools

…and I'm good to go, it seems.

I just lost 2 hours with the v11.5 tools install+reinstall+uninstal+reinstal and many, many VM restarts, Fusion quit+open, Mac restarts, etc.

eyeless
Contributor
Contributor

I have not tried to fix it yet as I am not prepared to upgrade anytime really soon to Catalina anyway – must be the worst (or most worthless/costly) macOS new system for a very long time. But I have clean macOS environments already available for when I want to reinstall the older VMware Fusion, but was hoping that maybe VMware would fix some of the problems soon so I did not need to go back ... . Maybe in version 12, but they seem more focussed on other things. (It is odd that good functionality is taken away, like when they took away the obvious automatic attachment of USB-connected devices that many relied on without notice.)

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ColoradoMarmot
Champion
Champion

VMWare's aware of the issue and working on it...no eta.

Stefan456
Contributor
Contributor

Hi,

I have the same issue. Upgraded from 8.5 to 11.5 and ElCapitan guest only runs in 1024x768

Host is High Sierra

- Reinstalled VM Tools several times.

- Tried sudo /Library/Application\ Support/VMware\ Tools/vmware-resolutionSet 1920 1080

   but get the error unable to find the service

- Tried several combinations in the display settings of the VM.

On the guest it shows only 3MB of video memory, although for the VM 1GB is configured.

a fast solution would be appreciated, I`m running an important application in the VM.

Thanks

Stefan

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