open-vm-tools not working 'as well' in oS 11.1

Greets forum. One of the things I loved about 11.0 was it’s native integration of open-vm-tools which made running 11.0 in a VMware environment more native than any other OS. oS11.0 VMs flourished like rabbits in my environment thanks to this (usually) transparent integration.

Well, I upgraded several of my 11.0 VMs to 11.1 but find now that several of the integration features aren’t working.

  1. in 11.0 under VM Workstation 6.5.0 I could go to “view -> fit guest now” and the desktop would expand to perfectly fit the available screen space, in 11.1, even though open-vm-tools is installed and running (and so is the vmware-toolbox application), “fit guest now” is grayed out and I’m forced to choose more standard resolutions, none of which are a perfect fit unless I’m running the vm full screen which I almost never do.

  2. In 11.0, my mouse pointer seamlessly moved from the VM to the host, in 11.1 I’m forced to still ‘release’ the mouse pointer manually to get it to move out of the vm.

  3. I can’t drag-n-drop files to/from the host/guest.

  4. Frankly, although open-vm-tools is installed, and says it’s running, the system functions as-if no vm tools are installed at all. About the only thing taht ‘might’ be working is time sync.

I could install vmware’s own tools but I’d like to try to solve this first. Anybody else having these kind of open-vm-tools issues under 11.1, or am I just an odd duck?

I haven’t tried a CLEAN 11.1 install under VM Workstation, maybe I’ll try that while waiting for a reply here to see if perhaps it’s something that didn’t carry over well from the upgrade.

okay, i did a fresh install of oS 11.1 and things are slightly ‘better’ but still not quite right. Mouse pointer integration has been restored but “view -> fit guest now” is still grayed out.

At this workstation, my work machine, I’m running VMWorkstation 6.5.0 under Windows XP SP2.

Built a brand-new installation of openSUSE 11.1 on x86_64 architecture with the latest updates as of today. Same problem. Can’t perform a fit guest using the built-in open-vm-tools.

Anyone have any ideas, or is this just a bug?

Run vmware-user from a console. For some reason it doesn’t start when guestd starts. I don’t know why, there are some threads on the vmware communities about this. I haven’t taken the time to delve into the problem.

jeff