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VMware Player: a CMD startup script

Originally published 12 comments

By Ivan Versluis

I created a small script to start a virtual machine with VMware Player. It can be used with Scheduled Tasks at system startup or as a shortcut for a user testing a prepared VM.

Without a script, you still have to open VMware Player after logging in and locate the virtual machine or choose a recent one.

Create a new file in Notepad and paste the commands below. Check that the VMware Player installation path and the location of your VMware guest are correct.

@Echo off

REM VMWare Player cmd script for virtual guest startup

REM Ivan Versluis @ Networknet.nl

REM Email: [email protected]

REM Date: 29/01/2008

"C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Player\vmplayer.exe" "C:\VMWareGuests\Server\Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition.vmx"

The result ;)

image

12 comments

Comments from the original WordPress site, kept read-only.

  1. JM

    Thank you for putting this up here. I've been looking for it for about an hour, putting a virtual machine on my new image for work and I wanted to make it easier for the employees to get into Windows XP when they need it.

  2. Abdulrahman Dimashki

    Thanks for the tip, any success in shutting down the virtual machines when Windows 2008 R2 shuts down?

    I think this should be doable using power shell, but I don't have enough information about that yet.

  3. fraser

    where is the start ?????????????????????????
    where is the finish?????????????????????????????
    do you get an email everytime we switch the computer on ??????????????///

  5. Binsar

    The script is ok if you manually click it. But how if you want to fully automatically run the vm? I try put the script on the wind task scheduler, but somehow it not run properly. I mean, that when I ping the vm, it replying, but i cannot open / remote to the machine.
    Any other suggestion ?

  6. Topher

    Great post... very simple and works well.
    Bisnar - put the script in your startup folder for all users. If you setup automatic login (obv. some security issues here, so only do this in non-prod evironments) but you can use the command "netplwiz" to bypass the welcome screen in windows 7 (click "windows key" + R --> type "netplwiz" in the run command box that appears).

  7. Topher

    Note - add "exit" to a new last line to automatically close the bat file so that black box doesn't stay on the screen.

  9. Chris

    works great, only one problem, the command never exits. There are 2 more that need to run at the end of my batch file and the cmd just stops and waits for me to actually close the vm before proceeding. Thoughts?

     

    call "C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Player\vmplayer.exe" "%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Virtual Machines\<vm>.vmx"

    then crickets

  11. Chris

    nm, i figured it out:

    use start not call

    start "C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Player\vmplayer.exe" "%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Virtual Machines\<vm>.vmx"

  12. Chris

    One more problem: this vm is being used for development, so after it is started up I need to map it:

    start "C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Player\vmplayer.exe" "%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Virtual Machines\<vm>.vmx"

    call net use E: <name> "<password>" /user:<user>

    but if the vm has not finished its startup by the time net use is called, I am pretty sure bad things will happen. Is it possible to basically do a "vm has started" callback? If not I can just put in

    sleep 30

    I bet that will cover it