Windows – VMware workstation install problem

I use VMWare Workstation. To address your concerns:

• I find that the console is more responsive than the VMWare Server console, so that's a plus. I will switch between remote desktop and direct console and don't notice much of a difference in responsiveness.
• Sound performance is great. I've never had disconnects like you describe.
• I understand VMWare Workstation 7 has multi-monitor support, though I have no experience with it.
• VMWare Workstation does group all of the machines together in one Window, so they have to be managed as tabs and not as separate windows.

VMWare Workstation does have some additional drawbacks over VMWare Server.

• In particular, there's no automatic suspend support. If you accidentally log off or shutdown the host computer, all of you guests will be instantly powered off. They claim there's no reliable way to shut them down without running them as a service, and they can't run them as a service for security reasons. In other words, "it's complicated".
• There's no good remote administration support. You can execute command-line scripts, or you can remote desktop into the host, or you can use VNC (if you've enabled it for a given machine), but there's no web interface to administer workstation.

Some of the reasons I run Workstation over Server.

• Some of you reasons mentioned.
• Better hardware support.
• I feel better supporting the project financially, as it's the best product out there and the price is reasonable.
• Great snapshot support. Multiple live snapshots, live VM cloning, shared disk space.
• It doesn't run that dreadful Tomcat stuff with all of the bugs that come with trying to get it to work well under Windows.
• I feel like VMWare Workstation makes much better use of my resources.

Other reasons for keeping VMWare over other VM products.

• Memory over-allocation. You can run a 2GB virtual machine on a host with 2GB of memory. I don't recommend it in general, but in a pinch, it's a nice feature.
• Great hardware support - connect high-speed USB devices and many other things. I've always found VMWare ahead of the curve with machine virtualization technology. I've rarely seen a feature of another product that VMWare didn't already do well.

From what I see from the log entries there, you have a vmauthd error. This error usually prevents you from starting any type of VM on the machine; this can be caused through several issues:

• The service itself is stopped/disabled
• The licence key is expired
• The service is not found.

Given the vmauthd error details you have provided, unfortunately doesn't answer the question, given that the actual error from vmauthd didn't return any details back to windows. So, now, we need to do some basic troubleshooting, to ensure that the VMware is setup properly on the system:

Recovery Options

In situations where applications just will not install, or under normal circumstances nothing works, there are a few additional steps to consider:

Alternate Profile: Creating an alternate user profile on the computer can help to install software, or work with Operating System components that otherwise may be locked, corrupted, or otherwise denied access on the primary profile.

• Press WinKey + R
• Type in control userpasswords2 and press Enter on your keyboard

• Click Add... to get to the 'Add New User...' screen

• Fill in the necessary information.

• Click on Next

• You can enter a password if you wish, I just usually leave it blank, as it will be just a temporary account.

• Select the Administrators option, so that you have proper control on the machine.
• Click on Finish to finish adding the user to the computer.

You can then go ahead and completely restart the computer, and log directly into the test account. Try to run the VMWare Player installer (not the workstation one), to see if it installs.

System Restore: The other option that is available to you is to run System Restore. This is a good feature of Windows that allows the user to restore their machine back to a previous state in time. Given that you know when the last time it WAS working, you should be able to restore just prior to that and see if your applications start.

Additional Troubleshooting

Service Verification

VMWare Player 4.02x should have the following after install:

You can verify this information by doing the following:

• Click Start
• Type in: services.msc
• Press Enter on your keyboard.

That will bring up your Service console. Make sure those services exist. IF THEY DO NOT, you will need to re-install VMWare Player 4.02x.

Service Configuration

1. Make sure that the VMware Authentication Service is running. [Not disabled, not stopped].
2. Make sure that the VMware Authentication service is set to run as Local System Account.
3. IF THIS IS A SERVER SETUP: Make sure that the netlogon service is Set to Automatic and not disabled or manual.

User Configuration

• Make sure the user is either an Administrator, or that the Virtual Machine is setup on a local system account, so that when started, it runs with the proper credentials.
• For Windows 7 and Vista with User Account Control Enabled: Make sure you set the VMWare Workstation/appliance executable files to always run as administrator.

Performance Counters: information you provided, please run the following from the Command Line via an Elevated Command prompt:

LODCTR /R

This command rebuilds the perf registry strings and info from scratch based on the current registry settings and backup INI files.

You can also run this from an actual script (once you run this, run the script anyway, just to make sure that your services are setup properly as well, then try your images).

Application Scripting/Testing:

You could create a nice batch file that includes the following:

lodctr /r
net stop vmauthdservice
net start vmauthdservice

And then run it whenever you have issues. Note, this isn't available on Windows XP, but on Vista, 7, and above, you can run this. Make sure you run from an ELEVATED command prompt:

• Click Start
• Type in 'cmd' into the search bar at the bottom
• Right Click on the cmd result in the list above
• Click on Run as Administrator...

Then execute the commands above.

This little script rebuilds the proper performance strings/counters for Virtual Machines on the system, starts and stops the VM Authentication and Registration Services.

You can then just go ahead and try out your VM images again.