Investigating if a hosted virtual machine is powered on

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VMware VMware Desktop Hypervisor

Issue/Introduction

This article provides a guide to determining whether a virtual machine is powered on. In some cases, this information cannot be confirmed solely through the VMware graphical interface. The steps outlined here help eliminate any uncertainty regarding the status of a virtual machine. Additionally, the article explains how to identify the process ID (PID) of a powered-on virtual machine.

Resolution

The method for determining the power status of a virtual machine varies between Windows and Unix-based hosts, such as Linux and macOS. The relevant section for the host operating system in use should be referenced. If multiple hosts are responsible for running a virtual machine, the status should be verified on each host system.

Note: The following procedures require logging in as a user with Administrator rights or root privileges to ensure accurate results.

Determining if a Virtual Machine is Powered On by a Windows Host

To determine if a virtual machine is powered on by a Windows host:

Open the Task Manager:
- Click Start > Run.
- Type taskmgr and click OK.
Note: If running a version of Windows where this command does not work, a utility capable of displaying processes must be used. Refer to the Additional Information section for alternative applications.
Click the Processes tab.
Ensure the Image Name column is sorted alphabetically by clicking on the column header if necessary.
Locate a process named vmware-vmx.exe.
- If this process is not listed, no virtual machines have been powered on by this host.
- If the virtual machine files are on a network share accessible by multiple hosts, this procedure should be followed on each potential host.
If a process named vmware-vmx.exe appears in the process list, at least one virtual machine is powered on. If multiple virtual machines exist on the host, further verification is required to determine if the specific virtual machine in question is powered on.
If the PID (Process Identifier) column is not visible in Task Manager:
- Click View > Select Columns.
- Check the box for PID (Process Identifier).
- Click OK.
Record the PID for each vmware-vmx.exe entry.
Navigate to the directory containing the virtual machine’s files using Windows Explorer. If the location is unknown, refer to Locating a Hosted Virtual Machine’s Files (308646)
Open the vmware.log file in a text editor such as Notepad or WordPad.
On the first line of the file, locate the text pid=####, where #### represents the process ID. If this number does not match any of the recorded PIDs from Step 7, the virtual machine is not powered on by this host.

Note: If the virtual machine files are on a network share accessible by multiple hosts, this process should be repeated on each potential host.

Determining if a Virtual Machine is Powered On by a Linux or macOS Host

To determine if a virtual machine is powered on by a Linux or macOS host:

Open a shell prompt. For additional details, refer to Opening a Command or Shell Prompt (344061)
Run the following command:

ps aux | grep vmware-vmx
If one or more vmware-vmx processes appear in the results, check the directory paths associated with each process to identify the virtual machines that are powered on.
If no vmware-vmx process is found, or if none of the listed directory paths match the virtual machine in question, then the virtual machine is not powered on by this host.

Notes:

If the virtual machine files are on a network share accessible by multiple hosts, this process should be repeated on each potential host.
The process ID (PID) of any powered-on virtual machine can be identified by checking the second column of the command output.

Additional Information

An alternative utility for displaying processes running on a Windows computer, supported by Microsoft, is pslist.

To use pslist, download and extract the utility into a folder, then open a command prompt. For additional details, refer to Opening a Command or Shell Prompt (344061).

At the command prompt, navigate to the directory where the utility was saved. Once in that directory, check for any process named vmware-vmx.exe. For example, if pslist is located on drive C: in the temp directory, the following commands would be used: