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Disable Debug Mode In VMware Player Or Workstation Betas

April 25th, 2010 |

Author: Rich Brambley

If you are exploring the latest beta version of VMware Workstation or Player you are not getting access to the full performance of the application due to debug mode being enabled by default. Sure I want to help in the development process, but there are times I just want to experience the bliss of reveling in the latest application improvements at top performance. For these times, this post documents a couple of ways others have successfully turned off debug mode for VMware Workstation on Windows and on suggests how to do the same on Linux. This post also points out that disabling debug mode in the free VMware Player is not an option.

Although I’ve received a similar notice when running beta VMware Workstation on my systems, I most recently have been exploring the Player 3.1 Beta. The following screen shot shows the debug mode pop up notification whenever a VM is powered on.

Disable Debug Mode In VMware Workstation on Windows

Here’s one of the latest VMware Communities threads explaining how to do it: Turn off Beta Debug mode. As described in the forum thread, the answer to disabling debug mode could be this simple:

Rename vmware-vmx-debug to vmware-vmx-debug.save.
Copy vmware-vmx to vmware-vmx-debug.
Enjoy.

In the past that’s all I had to do with Workstation on my Windows computers.

To expand the realm of possibilities you could encounter depending on your Windows OS flavor and VMware Workstation beta, the post Get Rid of Debug Mode in VMware Workstation Beta explains two other scenarios:

1. Paste “%PROGRAMFILES%\VMware\VMware Workstation\” (without the quotes) in your windows explorer bar and press Enter to open the local installation folder of VMware Workstation.

2. Now there are two cases depending upon your host’s environment and your VMware Workstation’s version,

Either you’ll see two files with names, vmware-vmx-debug.exe and vmware-remotemks-debug.exe. In this case,

First rename vmware-vmx-debug.exe file to vmware-vmx-debug.exe.old.

Then rename vmware-remotemks-debug.exe file to vmware-vmx-debug.exe.old.

Or, you’ll see two folders with names bin and bin-debug. In this case,

First rename the bin-debug folder to bin-debug-old.

Then make a copy of the bin folder and rename the copied folder to bin-debug.

That’s it. After making these changes you’ll get rid of the debug mode forever.

Eureka! Bye Bye debug mode for Windows.

Disable Debug Mode in VMware Workstation on Linux

For ending Workstation beta debugging on Linux the process is essentially the same. Search your own distribution to be sure, but the files to be renamed should be found at /usr/lib/vmware/bin.

Disable Debug Mode in VMware Player – Not Possible?

I have tried to disable debug mode in the Player 3.1 beta without success. If I rename the files as suggested in the VMware Workstation workarounds above I end up with the following error message when starting a VM.

The error is looking for it, but there was not a file named vmware-vmx.exe anywhere on my 64 bit Windows 7 system.

I found a thread in the VMware Player 3.1 beta community forum that confirmed VMware Player does not allow debug mode to be disabled. Gather debugging information contains a response from VMware Developer jameslin that states:

“The beta version of Player doesn’t include a release version of the vmware-vmx.exe binary, so currently there is no way to disable running it with debugging enabled.”

Since VMware Workstation includes a copy of VMware Player, I guess I will have to install the full beta of Workstation 7.1 to explore VMs running in Player 3.1 without debugging getting in the way.

VM /ETC

Disable Debug Mode In VMware Player Or Workstation Betas

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