Installing VMWare Tools with VMWare Player

Once you have your virtual environment setup and an OS installed, it is very likely that the system will not perform to its absolute potential. That’s because the “hardware” which VMPlayer and VMWorkstation emulate is not supported by Windows or Linux by default. That’s where VMWare Tools comes into play. VMWare tools supplies all the necessary drivers along with several handy tools and applications to extend the functionality of VMWare Workstation and VMWare Player.

However, here is the catch: VMWare Tools is not available as a separate download and only comes bundled with the VMWare Workstation and, moreover, VMWare Workstation is not a free application.

There is a way to get around this though. As of this writing, it is still possible to download a “trial” copy of VMWare Workstation. You will most likely need to uninstall VMWare Player (if it’s installed) and then install the evaluation copy of VMWare Workstation. Once VMWare Workstation is installed and you boot up your virtual Windows or Linux OS, simply click VM->Install VMWare Tools… in the menu. This will automatically connect an ISO image on your hard drive to the virtual CD-ROM/DVD drive. For Windows users, this means the “autoplay” feature should automatically bring up the installation program for you. For Linux users, it will mount the drive and open a file browser, where you can either install the RPM (recommended) or install from source.

So what happens when the evaluation copy of VMWare Workstation finally expires? If you enjoyed using it and found it to be far superior than VMWare Player – why not consider purchasing the full-blown version? If this is not possible, you can always remove VMWare Workstation from your system (via Add/Remove Programs) and re-install VMWare Player. The installation of VMWare Tools will not be removed if you remove VMWare Workstation.

Another option is to copy the VMWare Tools ISO files (each OS should have its own ISO file) from the VMWare Workstation installation to a backup location for future use. This of course assumes you have purchased the full version of VMWare Tools. Doing a search for “.iso” should show you the location for your installed version. Once copied to a backup location, you can now easily mount the ISO file within your VMWare virtual environment and install VMWare Tools.