Enable content copy/paste between VMRC and guest operating systems at Host level

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• Content copy and paste operations between VMRC and guest operating systems remain disabled by default on ESXi hosts.
• This restriction prevents text, command strings, or clipboard data from being transferred between the VMRC console and Windows or Linux virtual machines.
• Host-level configuration is required to enable this functionality for all virtual machines managed by the ESXi host.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 8.x

Resolution

1. Connect to the ESXi host using SSH.
2. Take a backup of the configuration file.
   
   cp  /etc/vmware/config /etc/vmware/config.bak
   
   
3. Open the configuration file:
   
   vi /etc/vmware/config
   
   
4. Add the following advanced parameters to enable copy and paste globally:
   
   isolation.tools.copy.disable = "FALSE"
isolation.tools.paste.disable = "FALSE"
isolation.tools.setGUIOptions.enable = "TRUE"
   
   
5. Save the file and exit the editor.
6. Reboot the host to reload the configuration.
7. Power-cycle each virtual machine to activate the new settings.

Additional Information

Enable content Copy/Paste between VMRC client and Windows/Linux Virtual Machine