Monday, October 10, 2011

VMware Workstation 8 on a Local Account (Standard User)

If you get any of these errors while using VMware Workstation from a Local Account  (standard user) account on a guest (Windows 7) system,


"Could not get vmx86 driver version: The handle is invalid.
You have an incorrect version of driver "vmx86.sys". Try reinstalling VMware Player."

"Failed to initialize monitor device."

"Error while powering on: Cannot find a valid peer process to connect to"
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Adding the user you would like to be able to use the Workstation to " __vmware__ " group in windows will solve this issue.
I came upon this while reading the following blog post,

http://blogs.vmware.com/workstation/2011/09/vmware-workstation-8-running-windows-8.html
(I suggest you read the above post.)

If you are a novice user open, Control Panel-> Administrative Tools->Computer Management, in the left pane select (Left Click) look for Local Users and Groups, select (Double Click) Groups, at very bottom you will find a group named "__vmware__".

Click on the add button, type the username and do not forget to click Check Names before clicking  OK. 
This post is primarily for Windows 7 and Windows Developer Preview users but is applicable to Windows XP as well.

1 comment:

  1. According to http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/7539-local-users-groups-manager-open.html

    "Local Users and Groups is not available in the Windows 7 Starter, Home Basic, and Home Premium editions. "

    I verified this. Tried to add the snap in using mmc and got error saying this is not available to home premium users.

    So now to [hopefully] find some other way to add this group to user account b/c is not a viable option to non-ultimate users. Way to go MS. Force folks to spend more money just to access certain apps :(

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