VMware Tools SVGA Driver Tip

Question

I have Windows 8 DP with Tools running in a VMware virtual machine.  That all went nicely, given that I created a Windows 7 x64 VM with a blank hard drive, then connected the Microsoft ISO to the CD and installed it.

The only thing that didn't work right for me was the installation of VMware tools in the guest Windows 8 system - I couldn't get the SVGA driver to load, so I was experiencing Windows 8 through the (mostly) unaccelerated default Windows driver.

On a tip from a VMware forum member, I reduced my VM virtual memory from 4 GB to 2 GB and lo and behold now the SVGA driver installs and works! 

The Windows 8 experience is vastly enhanced when the display is fluid. I'm now a happy camper.  I hope this can help anyone else having the issue.

-Noel

Answer 1

Same here (DP on VMware WS8), and my problem with the VMwre tools was I had my resolution set too high so I couldn't see the VMware prompt (in the DP client) to install.  (The green background tools prompt was "below" the bottom edge of the screen, or so it seems).  It was only getting tired of the half-broken navigation I set the resolution to 1440x900 and there was the tools prompt.

Once installed, yes, fluid is the operative word.

Running WEI on the client shows I have 7.2 on both graphics benchmarks, probably because my host's NVidia 580GT is a MONSTER!

I7-960, 6GB RAM, VMWare WS8, 2GB client RAM, = very satisfactory performance, probably much better than many of the native OS installs in fact.

DAS