VMware Workstation 3.2 Troubleshooting Troubleshooting An example, of this problem is trying to type into a Notepad window getting strange looking characters or just hearing beeps. Sometimes Workstation will cause the host to lose keyboard events. This causes it to think that keys are being held down when they are not. This normally happens only to modifier keys such as Ctrl, Shift and Alt. If you notice strange keyboard behavior on the host after leaving the Workstation application, you should press and release each of the modifier keys. This will release any keys that are stuck on the host. If this still doesn't work, you should try other special keys including the Windows key, Esc and Caps Lock. On a Linux host, Workstation should map all keys to the appropriate keyboard type when the host is using an X server from XFree86 and you are running locally on the host. However, if Workstation is running remotely (regardless of the X server used) or locally with an X server not from XFree86, only a limited number of non-US keyboards is supported. Depending on the X server version and user-defined key mappings, certain keyboard types may work. See Keyboard Mapping on a Linux Host in the Workstation manual if you are experiencing problems when using an international keyboard. If some keys on your Japanese keyboard do not work within a virtual machine, adding the following to your ~/.vmware/config file may fix the problem:
xkeymap.keycode.120 = 0x070 Workstation supports the following mouse types:
Some mice can be made to work by selecting the closest compatible mouse in the Configuration Editor. Some mice not on this list, including the Microsoft Inbus mouse, will not work with Workstation. If you are setting up a guest operating system that uses XFree86 4.x, do not specify Intellimouse. Instead, you should specify a mouse type of IMPS/2. On a Linux host, you may need to specify the type of mouse you have. (Note that this is the type of the physical mouse attached to your host computer. The virtual machine always has a PS/2 mouse.) Workstation normally gets the mouse type from your X server, but sometimes that is not possible or the information from X is incorrect. To specify the mouse type
The mouse can sometimes become unusable when you use parallel printer ports within a virtual machine. If this occurs, please report the details to VMware technical support. There is a problem in Workstation that makes the mouse cursor very difficult to control when an always-on-top window pops up over a running virtual machine window. An example is the Windows NT Task Manager program window. When an always-on-top window appears over and within the virtual machine window as an island, the mouse cursor will stay within the always-on-top window. The mouse cursor will jump to the center of the dialog window every time you try to move the mouse into the virtual machine window. You will not be able to access the NT host or the virtual machine. To work around the problem, click in the always-on-top window to make it an active window. At this point you should be able to access the NT host. Minimize the always-on-top window or drag it so it does not obscure the virtual machine window. The mouse should work inside the virtual machine when its window is no longer obscured by the always-on-top window. Note: This problem does not occur on host systems running Windows 2000. If you have a TouchPad pointing device or a troublesome mouse driver, DirectInput may fail to initialize with the following error when you attempt to power on the virtual machine:
Apr 11 16:03:31: Msg_Post Error: msg.diMouse.powerOnFailed The virtual machine fails to start. Try uninstalling the TouchPad driver (or your current mouse driver, if you're not using a TouchPad) on the host computer and installing a Microsoft Generic PS/2 Mouse driver. The next time you start the virtual machine, you should not see the error message. Guest operating systems will detect and install device drivers for four serial (COM) ports and two parallel (LPT) ports even if those devices are not enabled in Workstation. These virtual devices consume guest operating system IRQ and I/O address resources and appear to be present from within the guest operating system. Leaving these devices as is and unconfigured in Workstation will not cause any problems. To enable a device, shut down the guest operating system, power off the virtual machine and use the Configuration Editor to enable the serial or parallel port device. We have seen this interaction in Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows .NET Server guest operating systems. Do the following:
To enable COM2, you may have to delete COM4. Although the COM5 and COM6 ports are not actually used, you do not need to remove them. However, for proper operation of serial ports in the virtual machine, you should remove COM3 and COM4 if they appear in the Device Manager. You may need to stop Workstation's parallel port driver before you undock. To do so, go to Start > Run and enter the command net stop vmparport Click OK. You should then be able to remove the computer from the docking station without problems. VMware Workstation 3.2 contains a new implementation for its virtual serial ports that does not support the TTY type of serial port, which actually uses pseudo-TTY objects on a Linux system. You may be running a virtual machine with a TTY type of serial port created with an older version of VMware Workstation. Pseudo-TTY objects are no longer supported in VMware Workstation because of their asymmetrical nature (the master end has the semantics of a pipe, whereas the slave end has the semantics of a TTY), which is not suitable for communication between two virtual machines. However, if you want to use pseudo-TTY, you need to modify the configuration file for the virtual machine to use the older serial port implementation. Open the configuration file (.vmx on Windows hosts, .cfg on Linux hosts) in a text editor and add the following line: serial.v2=False If you decide to use the older serial port implementation in your virtual machine, this affects all serial ports in the virtual machine. You cannot use the pipe type for a virtual serial port (which actually uses Unix socket objects on a Linux system) in the virtual machine and the virtual serial port will not perform as well as it does under the new implementation. To revert back to the new implementation, remove the line you added to the configuration file. Virtual machines on a Linux host cannot access Winmodems and Winprinters, as these devices ship with drivers designed to run them on a Windows host operating system. If these drivers are made available for a Linux host operating system, either by the original vendor or a third party, then the virtual machine should be able to communicate with the devices provided the drivers export the modem or printer interfaces in a standard way (that is, so virtual machines could access these devices via their serial or parallel ports). Go to www.linmodems.org for more information.
The mtmcdai.sys driver works fine and it can be found at In config.sys
DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS In autoexec.bat
@ECHO OFF There are many DOS ATAPI drivers. Some work and some fail. Those that fail do so in a variety of ways. The workaround is to get a driver that works. The NEC drivers on the Windows 95 and Windows 98 boot diskettes work fine, and booting from the Windows 98 CD-ROM works, too. The Mitsumi ATAPI driver mtmcdai.sys, which can be found at www.mitsumi.com/indexusa.html, is among those known to work. If your CD-ROM driver will not run, please do the following:
At times, you may need to disconnect and reconnect the virtual CD-ROM drive to forge the guest operating system to notice a disc change. To do so, take the following steps:
CD burning is not a supported operation at this time. CD-RW hardware behaves just like a standard CD-ROM drive in a virtual machine. You can read data, but you cannot write to a disc. You can use your DVD drive to read data discs. Viewing DVD movies in a virtual machine is not supported. If the disc you are trying to read is one of the above types, you must configure your virtual CD-ROM drive for raw access. To do so, take the following steps:
You should be able to play audio CDs in a virtual machine, but you may see some problems. For example, a CD may continue playing after you power off the virtual machine. Workstation can interact in undesirable ways with CD-ROM autorun on the host. This can cause a CD-ROM intended for a guest operating system to start on the host operating system or cause a CD-ROM to start simultaneously on the host and in the guest. The Workstation installer prompts you to allow it to disable CD-ROM autorun on the host system. Workstation also warns at Power On if autorun is enabled. If you experience frequent pausing or slowdown in virtual machines running Windows operating systems, see if
In either of these cases, you should upgrade your kernel to at least version 2.2.4. With this upgrade, the pauses should go away, the CD-ROM drive will spin down when idle and other quirky CD-ROM behavior will be fixed. If you are unable to upgrade your Linux kernel, it may be possible to work around the pausing or slowdown by disabling the CD-ROM from the Devices menu. Another workaround is to disable CD-ROM autoplay in the guest operating system. For Windows 95 and Windows 98, go to Control Panel > System > Device Manager > CDROM and double-click the CD-ROM device. Under Settings, clear the Auto Insert Notification check box. On systems with Linux kernel versions less than 2.2.4, Workstation can cause the CD-ROM drawer to close rapidly and automatically. This behavior can be annoying, and if it occurs when you are loading a CD-ROM into the drive, it may cause the media to become trapped in the drawer. Please exercise caution when placing media in the CD-ROM drive. We recommend upgrading your Linux kernel to version 2.2.4 or higher. Or you can disable CD-ROM autoplay in the guest operating system. For Windows 95 and Windows 98, go to Control Panel > System > Device Manager > CDROM and double-click the CD-ROM device. Under Settings, clear the Auto Insert Notification check box. We are interested in hearing if you have a bad interaction with a USB device in your virtual machine. Take the following steps:
The performance of a floppy drive within a virtual machine can be significantly slower than on the native host computer. Workstation does not provide direct support within a virtual machine for PC Card (PCMCIA) devices, such as those found on notebook computers. Special PC Card drivers or software such as card managers cannot be used within a Workstation virtual machine. However, you should be able to use standard PC Card Ethernet adapters and modems in a virtual machine, and special PC Card devices or features should continue to be accessible from the host operating system while Workstation is running. It should be possible to install a PC Card Ethernet adapter supported by the Windows host operating system. The guest operating system will see a virtual AMD PCnet-II PCI Ethernet adapter regardless of what PC Card is installed in the host computer. It should be possible to install a modem card that emulates a standard UART and is supported by the Windows host operating system. The guest operating system should see the modem mapped as a generic COM serial port. Ejecting or installing a PC Card used by a running virtual machine may cause problems. Iomega Zip drives that use an EIDE ATAPI interface cannot be used in a Workstation virtual machine. IDE disk drives in a virtual machine do not support ATAPI (although the virtual machine IDE CD-ROM drives do). You can continue to use Iomega EIDE ATAPI Zip drives on the host operating system and may store and run Workstation virtual disks from them. If you boot Windows 95 or Windows 98 from a raw disk (on a dual-boot host computer) and configure your EIDE ATAPI Zip drive as an available device when Windows is running under Workstation as a guest operating system, the Iomega drivers and software will run in compatibility mode (rather than 32-bit mode) after that, even when you are running Windows natively. This happens because Windows 95 and Windows 98 do not actually insulate the different hardware profiles (the native and guest versions) from each other. Workstation does not support IDE Zip drives. Thus, when the drive is accessed within Workstation, no IDE driver is present and Windows falls back to DOS compatibility mode, hoping some legacy DOS driver is running. Workstation does not currently support Imation SuperDisk LS120 120MB floppy disk drives in a virtual machine, either as standard floppy drives or as LS120 drives. You can continue to use these drives on the host system, even though you cannot use them in a virtual machine. Systems that have only SuperDisk floppy drives will not be able to install guest operating systems that require booting from a floppy disk. One workaround for this is to install guest operating systems from bootable CD-ROMs. Another workaround is to add an additional conventional floppy disk drive to the computer. These drives are available from retailers at relatively low cost and are typically easy to install. If you are unsure of what you are doing, please consult an experienced computer repair specialist. A third approach is to create a floppy image file from your floppy disk, copy the image file to your host computer and use the Configuration Editor (Settings > Configuration Editor) to attach the virtual machine's floppy drive to the image file.
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