Ubuntu – Copy/paste and drag&drop not working in VMware machine with Ubuntu

14.04vmwarevmware-tools

Suddenly copy/paste stopped working from/to Windows 8 host computer to/from ubuntu virtual machine. Ubuntu restart did not help. I tried command:

sudo apt-get install open-vm-tools

But got report I have newest version. Guest Isolation settings are enabled. What could be the scenario of fixing this problem?

I had the same problem and found that this can be fixed by executing the following commands:

sudo apt-get autoremove open-vm-tools
Install VMware Tools by following the usual method (Virtual Machine --> Reinstall VMWare Tools)
Reboot the VM
sudo apt-get install open-vm-tools-desktop
Reboot the VM, after the reboot copy/paste and drag/drop will work!

Feels like I found an answer (I used it for 17.10 )

In the terminal window execute this command to remove any previously installed tools:

sudo apt-get autoremove open-vm-tools

and after that execute this command to add tools:

sudo apt-get install open-vm-tools-desktop

and a final thing: do not forget to reboot.

It worked very well for me!

Enter the following command in terminal to enable drag and drop between virtual machines and the host.

gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.preferences use-experimental-views false

Do the following to enable drag and drop between two virtual machines:

Open the virtual machine settings editor (VM > Settings), click the Options tab and select Guest isolation.
Select Disable drag and drop to and from this virtual machine to disable the feature. Deselect it to enable the feature.