• Installing Vmware Workstation On Windows 2008 Server Command Line
• Vmware Workstation Windows Xp
• Installing Vmware Workstation On Windows 2008 Server Support End Of Life

I'm trying to install Windows 2008 R2 on VMWare, and I got this error: A required CD/DVD drive device driver is missing. Windows server 2008 R2 + VMWare. Guest operating system Windows 2000 and earlier, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, and later support VMware Tools. Manually Installing VMware Tools on a Windows Virtual Machine VMware Docs.

When installing the VMWare tools on a core install of Windows Server 2008 some people are confused to find that nothing happens after selecting “Install/Upgrade VMWare Tools” from the client window.

Even though the VMWare Tools image mounts to the virtual CD-ROM drive it does not autorun as you would expect in a normal install of Windows Server 2008. However you can still change directory to the virtual CD-ROM and see the VMWare Tools installation files are available.

To install the VMWare Tools you can simply launch setup.exe from the command line.

Follow the installation wizard accepting the default settings. You can also ignore the warnings about the Microsoft Help HTML engine and the version of Internet Explorer.

When the installer has finished you can reboot as normal and the VMWare Tools will now be installed.

Paul is a Microsoft MVP for Office Apps and Services and a Pluralsight author. He works as a consultant, writer, and trainer specializing in Office 365 and Exchange Server.

Windows 2008 Server Core benefits from VMware Tools, even though the GUI is mostly just a commandline. The most important benefit (to me) is the VMware enhanced mouse driver. This allows you to move the mouse in and out of the VM without having to to press the Ctrl-Alt release sequence.
Installing VMware Tools is a bit tricky, though, because there's no shell to integrate into. Here's how to install VMware Tools on Server Core:

Installing Vmware Workstation On Windows 2008 Server Command Line

Vmware Workstation Windows Xp

• Log into your Windows Server 2008 Server Core VM with an admin account
• From the VMware Workstation console, click the VM menu Install VMware Tools. This will mount the VMware Tools disk in the virtual CD-Rom drive.
• From the command line, switch to drive D: (or whatever drive is your CD drive)
• Type Setup and press Enter
• Click Install to the VMware informational message. The VMware Tools will begin to setup.
• Click Next to install
• Click Next to perform a Typical setup
• Click Install to begin the installation
• When you see the status stall, open Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-InsStart Task Manager)
• Click the Applications tab, select the RUNDLL process and choose End Task
• Close Task Manager and click OK to any error messages. Setup will continue as normal.
• Click Finish and click Yes to restart the server

Installing Vmware Workstation On Windows 2008 Server Support End Of Life

When Windows Server 2008 Server Core starts up, it will be in 640x480 resolution. Read my next blog post to explain how to configure the resolution in Windows 2008 Server Core.