Installing VMware Tools

I am amazed on my travels at the number of people I work with who use VMware server and workstation images that do not have the VMware Tools installed on their VM images.

Some of the biggest headaches when using VM images are:

• low video resolution
• having to use ctrl-alt to move the mouse in and out of the console window
• inability to copy and paste from the desktop to/from the console window

Installing the VMware Tools will fix all of these issues (and a few others) for you.  So go ahead and make your life (and mine) easier when working with VMware images, install the Tools.

Installing VMware Tools on VMware Workstation: 

1. Start the VM image.
2. Log into the image.
3. In the Menu pull down select VM -> Install VMware Tools…
4. Follow the install prompts.

Installing VMware Tools on VMware vSphere: 

1. Start the VM image.
2. Log into the image.
3. In the Menu pull down select Inventory -> Virtual machine -> Guest -> Install/Upgrade VMware Tools
4. Follow the install prompts.

Of course there are other ways to get the VMware Tools installed but the instructions above should get you going after the fact you don't have them installed already.  For more on VMware tools check out VMware KB 340.

Anybody got any tips or tricks for working with VM images?