VMware Workstation 5.5

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Options

The Options tab lets you adjust characteristics of the selected virtual machine.

General

Virtual Machine Name — Use this setting to change the virtual machine name. Type a new name in the field and click OK.

This field affects the virtual machine name only as it appears in the console tab and Favorites list. Changing the virtual machine name here does not change the names of the virtual machine files.

Virtual Machine Configuration File (Windows only) — This read-only field displays the path to the file that contains configuration information for the selected virtual machine.

Guest Operating System — Workstation optimizes the virtual machine for the operating system you choose in this field.

Version — Use this field to change the setting for the guest operating system version in the virtual machine's configuration file. This setting does not actually change the guest operating system itself.

When you set the guest operating system type in the New Virtual Machine Wizard, Workstation chooses configuration defaults based on the guest type you choose. Changing the guest type in this field simply changes the guest type setting in the configuration file.

The Version field is useful when you are upgrading the guest operating system installed in the virtual machine, and you want to change the guest operating system version.

Working Directory — The working directory is where Workstation stores suspended state (.vmss), snapshot (.vmsn) and redo log files. By default, this is the same directory the virtual machine files are stored in.

Power

Power options

Power Controls

Note: Settings in Power Controls apply only to the active virtual machine.

You can configure this button to turn off a virtual machine or team in two ways. Select Power Off if you want this button to work the way a power switch works on a power supply. The virtual machine is abruptly powered off, with no consideration for work in progress. Select Shut Down Guest if you want this button to send a shut down signal to the guest operating system. An operating system that recognizes this signal shuts down gracefully.

Note: Not all guest operating systems respond to a shut down signal from this button. If your operating system does not respond to a shut down signal, shut down from within the operating system, as you would with a physical machine.

The suspend button is not configurable.

The power on or resume button is not configurable.

You can configure this button to reset a virtual machine or restart a guest operating system. Select Reset if you want this button to work as a reset switch. The virtual machine is abruptly reset, with no consideration for work in progress. Select Restart Guest if you want this button to send a restart signal to the guest operating system. An operating system that recognizes this signal shuts down gracefully and restarts.

Note: Not all guest operating systems respond to a restart signal from this button. If your operating system does not respond to a restart signal, restart from within the operating system, as you would with a physical machine.

Run VMware Tools Scripts — This option allows you to run scripts when you power on a virtual machine. See Command Line Reference for help with scripting.

Shared Folders

Shared Folders — This option allows a virtual machine to share a folder with the host file system for convenient file transfers. See Using Shared Folders for help configuring this option.

Snapshots

General — You can disable snapshots for the virtual machine. The virtual machine must not have any snapshots if you want to disable snapshots.

To disable snapshots for this virtual machine, select Disable snapshots.

When powering off — You can specify the way Workstation handles snapshots when you power off the virtual machine. Options when powering off include:

See Using Snapshots for more information on setting these options.

Guest Isolation (Windows only)

Enable drag and drop to and from this virtual machine — Select this option if you want to drag and drop files from the host to the virtual machine and vice versa. One reason to leave the drag and drop feature disabled is to prevent files from accidentally being transferred between the virtual machine and the host.

Enable copy and paste to and from the virtual machine — Select this option if you want to copy and paste files from the host to the virtual machine and vice versa.

Advanced

Process priorities (Windows only) — VMware Workstation sets the default priority for virtual machine processing as Normal for both Input grabbed and Input ungrabbed. This means that the processes within virtual machines contend equally for resources with all other processes running on the host.

To change the default priority for the selected virtual machine, overriding the global priorities, choose the priority you want, then click OK.

You can also set the global priorities directly from a Workstation window by choosing Edit > Preferences and clicking the Priority tab.

Settings

To turn debugging mode on, select Run with debugging information, then click OK to apply your changes

To disable acceleration, select Disable acceleration, then click OK.

This setting slows down virtual machine performance, so it is recommended only for getting past the problem with running the program. After you pass the point where the program was encountering problems, try returning to the virtual machine settings editor and removing the check beside Disable acceleration. You may then be able to run the program with acceleration.

VMware uses a memory trimming technique to return unused virtual machine guest memory to the host machine for other uses. While trimming usually has little impact on performance and may be needed in low-memory situations, the I/O engendered by memory trimming can sometimes interfere with disk-oriented workload performance in a guest.

File locations

The read-only fields in this section show the location of the virtual machine's Workstation configuration and log files.

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