Manually Installing VMWare-tools for running Guest Linux/Windows OS in VMWare player/Workstation

This is the issue that bogged me down most of the time. This is the only frustrating experience that one can feel working on the VMWare Player/Workstation.

Whenever a new Guest Linux/Windows OS image is virtually booted into the VMWare player, we need to install VMWare-tools to enable advanced X features such as guest resolution fit(autofitting of the guest OS screen size on Maximizing/Minimizing), drag and drop,file and text- copy and paste.

For this, there is an option in VMWare player menu -> Virtual Machine -> Install VMWare Tools. But most of the time it fails with one of the following error:

• If you are working offline and internet is not accessible.
• There is a problem/bug within the player due to which sometimes it is unable to load virtual CD/DVD drive needed to load vmware-tools ISO image.

After spending considerable time on google searching for solution, I found that lot of other guys are facing the same problem and most of the solutions available are considering ideal situation of everything working properly.

So, I have compiled this short visual tutorial on rectifying this problem in simplest and hassle-free way.

     1)   Download the VMWare-Tools ISO image from the

           http://soft.assenov.net/software/index.php?dir=VMWare/

          Download VMware-tools-linux-9.0.0-782409.iso from the listing.

     2) Copy the downloaded Vmware-tools ISO image to <Vmware installation directory in C:\Program
         Files>\VMware Player\vmware-tools

     3) boot/start the guest Linux OS

     4) Go to VMWare Player Menu > Virtual Machine > Virtual Machine Setting (Ctrl+D)

   5) Click on Add.. to add a new  CD/DVD device if the CD/DVD device is not pre-existing

    6) attach the downloaded VmWare-tools ISO image to the new CD/DVD device of the virtual machine.

   7)  Reset /Reboot the player

    8) After booting the guest Linux OS, start the terminal and login as root

    9) Click on  VMWare Player Menu > Virtual Machine > Install VMWare Tools 

    10)  To create a mount point, run:

     $ mkdir /mnt/cdrom

          11)  To mount the CDROM, run:

     $ mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom

          12)  To install VMware Tools using TAR.GZ, run:

     $ tar xvf /mnt/cdrom/VMwareTools-<version>.tar.gz

     Where <version> is the version of VMware Tools you want to install

     It will extract in vmware-tools-distrib/ in current working directory.

          To check the existing version of VMware Tools, use the "cd" command to go to /mnt/cdrom/ directory 

           and list  the contents of the directory with the command # ls.

           Note: You can only perform the install as a root user or by using the sudo command.

13)  To install VMware Tools for your running kernel, run:

./vmware-tools-distrib/vmware-install.pl

14)  To unmount the CDROM, run:

umount /mnt/cdrom

15)  To end the VMware Tools install, click VM in the virtual machine menu, then click Guest > End VMware Tools Install.

16)  Reset/Restart the Guest Linux OS to enable advanced X features such guest resolution fit, drag and drop,file and text- copy and paste

This method works always for me and  I have tested it numerous time.

Happy Hacking!!