VM Workstation 8

[enx]

Hi

 

Not sure if this the right area, so sorry if not.

 

I work at further education college and we moving to windows 7, and wish to automate as much software as possible for deployment,

 

I am currently trying to get VMware Workstation 8 to install silently, I have gotten a script off the VMware site to the install which works, however we need to change the virtual network editor settings to set VMnet0 to host only so it wont recive an ip address from dhcp and I cant find a way to do this and was wondering if anyone had achieved this or has any ideas?

 

here is a copy of the script from the VMware site

 

VMware-workstation-full-8.0.1-528992.exe /s /nsr /v ADDLOCAL=ALL DISABLE_AUTORUN=0 QUICKLAUNCH_SHORTCUT=0 SERIALNUMBER="xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx"

 

cheers

[howartp]

Hi Enx,

 

I've not come across a way of automating this with the installer.

 

However, have a look at vnetlib.exe in the "c:\Program Files\VMWare\VMWare Workstation" folder - it's a command line exe which only one man in the entire world seems to know anything about.

 

I reckon the simplest way of using it is to manually set the settings you want on a sample machine, then run:

 

vnetlib -- export c:\Users\MyName\VMNet.cfg

 

This exports the Virtual Network Editor's settings in an unreadable format, but you can then automate this in whatever deployment software you're using for Win 7 with:

 

vnetlib -- import c:\Users\MyName\VMNet.cfg

 

There's a bigger guide of this at the following links, but I'm not familiar with the various VM networking modes so they don't mean much to me.

 

sanbarrow.com ~ Index

sanbarrow.com ~ Index

 

(They are different pages despite the same link name)

 

Peter

Edited June 13, 2013 by howartp
Spelling

[enx]

Hi Peter

 

Unfortunately VMWare changed the Virtual network editor in workstation 7 and onwards so the commands no longer work, I have had a look at the registry settings and the install directory but cant find anything.

 

Thanks for the help.

 

Nic

[enx]

Hi

 

Got the solution of another forum

 

Virtual Network Editor | VMware Communities

 

Thanks for the help

 

Nic

[howartp]

Hi Peter

 

Unfortunately VMWare changed the Virtual network editor in workstation 7 and onwards so the commands no longer work, I have had a look at the registry settings and the install directory but cant find anything.

 

Thanks for the help.

 

Nic

 

Actually, those commands were from Workstation 8.

 

But glad you sorted anyway.

 

Peter

[enx]

Hi Peter thanks for the help.

 

You were right about the commands for workstation 8.

 

My solution kept failing because auto bridging kept turning back on, so I did the following.

 

Modified the settings in the virtual network editor.

 

Then I used the following in cmd

 

cd C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation

start /wait vnetlib.exe -- export c:\settings.txt

 

This exports the settings from the virtual network editor.

 

On the local machine I then run.

 

c:

cd C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation

vnetlib -- uninstall bridge == vnetlib -- bridge uninstall

start /wait vnetlib.exe -- import c:\settings.txt

 

The vnetlib -- uninstall bridge == vnetlib -- bridge uninstall line is to permanently remove the bridge protocol to reinstall just replace uninstall with install.

 

I then just saved it as a cmd script.

 

Thanks for the help

 

Nic

Edited June 19, 2013 by enx

[howartp]

Hi Peter thanks for the help.

 

You were right about the commands for workstation 8.

 

My solution kept failing because auto bridging kept turning back on, so I did the following.

I then just saved it as a cmd script.

 

Thanks for the help

 

Nic

That's great, thanks for coming back and confirming this so anyone else who reads it in the future can follow it.

 

Peter