VMware Workstation 5.0

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Command Line Application

VMware Workstation includes a separate application, vmrun, for operating teams or virtual machines from the command line.

To launch the vmrun application, from the command prompt, enter:

vmrun COMMAND [OPTION]

Valid vmrun commands and options are described in the following table:


Command	Description	Option
`list`	Lists all running virtual machines.	None
`start`	Start a virtual machine	Path to `.vmx` file
`stop`	Stop a virtual machine or team.	Path to `.vmx` file (virtual machine) or Path to `.vmtm` file (team)
`reset`	Reset a virtual machine or team.	Path to `.vmx` file (virtual machine) or Path to `.vmtm` file (team)
`suspend`	Suspend a virtual machine or team.	Path to `.vmx` file (virtual machine) or Path to `.vmtm` file (team)
`upgradevm`	Upgrade a virtual machine to the current Workstation version.	Path to `.vmx` file

Note: Before running this command on a Windows host, you must do one of the following:

Change your working directory to the VMware Workstation directory. The default location is:

c:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Workstation

Add the VMware Workstation directory to the system path. On Windows 2000 and XP, this setting is changed from

Control Panels > System > Advanced > Environment Variables > System variables > Path

Examples for vmrun

For example, to start a virtual machine:

In a Linux terminal, enter

vmrun start /usr/local/VMs/<virtual_machine_name>.vmx

On the Windows command line, enter:

vmrun start c:\My Virtual Machines\<virtual_machine_name>.vmx

With virtual machines that require input through a VMware Workstation dialog box, vmrun may time out and fail. To disable Workstation dialog boxes, insert the following line into the .vmx configuration file for a virtual machine:

msg.autoAnswer = TRUE

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