Unity, copy/paste, and drag-and-drop do not work after restarting a virtual machine with auto-login enabled
search cancel

Unity, copy/paste, and drag-and-drop do not work after restarting a virtual machine with auto-login enabled

book

Article ID: 344584

calendar_today

Updated On:

Products

VMware Desktop Hypervisor

Issue/Introduction

In some cases, rebooting a virtual machine with auto-login enabled might cause the VMware Tools service/process to not work correctly. As a result, features such as Unity, copy/paste, and drag-and-drop might not work.

Environment

VMware Workstation Pro 14.x (for Linux)
VMware Workstation 10.x (Linux)
VMware Workstation Pro 12.x (Linux)
VMware Fusion 10.x
VMware Fusion 4.x
VMware Fusion Pro 8.x
VMware Fusion Pro 10.x
VMware Workstation 9.x (Windows)
VMware Fusion 2.x
VMware Workstation 8.x (Linux)
VMware Fusion 8.x
VMware Workstation 8.x (Windows)
VMware Fusion 3.x
VMware Fusion 5.x
VMware Workstation Pro 14.x (for Windows)
VMware Workstation 11.x (for Windows)
VMware Workstation 9.x (Linux)
VMware Workstation Pro 12.x (Windows)
VMware Workstation 7.x (Windows)
VMware Fusion 6.x
VMware Workstation 7.x (Linux)
VMware Workstation 11.x (for Linux)
VMware Fusion 7.x
VMware Workstation 10.x (Windows)

Resolution

This issue occurs when the virtual machine reboots and the user logs in with a period of 60 seconds.

To avoid this issue, either shutdown rather than restarting and wait 60 seconds before powering on, or disable the auto-login. Otherwise, when the VMware Tools process does not start automatically, you need to launch it manually.

To manually launch the VMware Tools service/process:

Fusion 3.x and 2.x and Linux guests running in VMware Workstation

In Fusion 2.x and 3.x, the VMware Tools service is called VMwareUser.exe in Windows and the VMware Tools process is called vmware-user in Linux.

Windows guests

  1. Click to Start > Run.
  2. Type:

    C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools\VMwareUser.exe
     
  3. Click OK.

Linux guests

  1. Open a command prompt. For more information, see Opening a command or shell prompt (1003892).
  2. Run these commands:

    pkill vmware-user
    vmware-user

Fusion 4.x and above and Windows guests running in VMware Workstation

In Fusion 4.x and above, the VMware Tools service is called vmtoolsd.exe.

There should be two vmtoolsd.exe services running, one under the SYSTEM username and the other under your own username. If the user account vmtoolsd.exe is not running, then Unity, drag and drop, and copy and paste do not work.

To manually launch the VMware Tools service for your own user account:

  1. Click to Start > Run.
  2. Type:

    "C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools\vmtoolsd.exe" –n vmusr
     
  3. Click OK.

If the service does not start automatically, ensure that the correct registry keys exist.

Note: This procedure modifies the Windows registry. Before making any registry modifications, ensure that you have a current and valid backup of the registry and the virtual machine. For more information on backing up and restoring the registry, see the Microsoft article 136393.

To confirm the registry keys:

  1. Click Start > Run.
  2. Type:

    regedit
     
  3. Click OK.
  4. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run .
  5. There should be two entries there. If these entries do not exist, create them:
    • VMware Tools REG_SZ "C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools\VMwareTray.exe"
    • VMware User Process REG_SZ "C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools\vmtoolsd.exe" -n vmusr

 

Note: In Fusion 5.x and above, the first entry is not needed.

 

 

Additional Information

For translated versions of this article, see:
Powered by Wolken Software