Installing VMware Tools inside a WS08 Core guest
So, I couldn't resist this post on Daniel Petri's web site describing how to install VMware Tools "additions" (chuckle) inside a Windows Server 2008 Core Edition guest machine. The thing that caught my attention was the caveate notes about having to hack it (a little)...
Note: Some websites claim that the installation of VMware Tools will stall, and that in order to complete it successfully you need to manually kill the RUNDLL process in Task Manager. Other sites claim that you need to run the installation by typing the following command:
Don't take this as criticism of the article, it's very good indeed. Actually, the problem is that the installer stops to prompt for three issues and is waiting for the user to click "ok" or "yes" or whatever. However, the z-order of the popup alerts puts them behind the installer dialog, so you never see then unless you just suddenly think to move it around in case it's hiding something behind it (it is!). The first two prompts involve DLL registration errors. The third asks if you want to update the Microsoft HTML help engine to display VMware Tools help content. Once you click past the two errors (they're harmless actually, both involve GUI features, so hey) and say "No" to the HTML Help update request, you're off to the finish line and the usual reboot prompt.