Workstation 8/9/10, Player 4/5/6 and Fusion 4/5/6 Mac OS X Unlocker

[Donk]

I am surprised that Albert's V7 Unlocker works with Workstation 8.

 

The best method is uninstall Workstation 7, install Workstation 8, apply Donk's Workstation 8 Unlocker, this should give you the ability to install and run OS X guestOS's including Lion. Install the latest VMware Tools via darwin.iso current version 4.0.1.

 

Some performance issues have been raised on the graphics front but no solution available as far as I am aware.

 

Yes it does patch some of the executables but not vmwarebase.

[trentfox]

Thank you Donk

This works like a miracle!!

 

Thanks to both Zenith432 and Donk! Zenith's patch works fine on my system. In my case, I'm running Lion on the host machine and using a guest Snow Leopard vm made on the previous version of VMware Fusion. The difference between my result and that of krisvdb may be that he tried to create a new vm. Perhaps the issue is not the unlocker, but the disk or iso he used to create it?

[kup]

Donk, is there any way to unlock (more than 8 total per VM) the maximum number of virtual processors in Workstation 8?

[Zenith432]

Please note that my latest unlocker upload (see post) contains a Linux version. There are binaries in there compiled for both 64-bit and 32-bit Linux. You can rebuild with the Makefile. It creates a binary called Unlocker.Linux.

 

This should patch Workstation 8 for Linux. I haven't tested it.

 

Files patched are

/usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-vmx
/usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-vmx-debug
/usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-vmx-stats

 

The patch can be reversed by running with the "-u" option.

[Donk]

Donk, is there any way to unlock (more than 8 total per VM) the maximum number of virtual processors in Workstation 8?

 

Never looked. As far as I know it is actually encoded in the various license files.

 

Please note that my latest unlocker upload (see post #43) contains a Linux version. There's a binary in there compiled for 64-bit Linux. If you have 32-bit linux, you can rebuild with the Makefile. It creates a binary called Unlocker.Linux.

 

This should patch Workstation 8 for Linux. I haven't tested it.

 

Files patched are

/usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-vmx
/usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-vmx-debug
/usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-vmx-stats

 

The patch can be reversed by running with the "-u" option.

Fantastic thanks for the quick work here. I am snowed under with work and so can't test just at the moment but will asap.

[gokumba]

Please note that my latest unlocker upload (see post #43) contains a Linux version. There's a binary in there compiled for 64-bit Linux. If you have 32-bit linux, you can rebuild with the Makefile. It creates a binary called Unlocker.Linux.

 

This should patch Workstation 8 for Linux. I haven't tested it.

 

It works in so far as I was able to boot my existing Snow Leopard image in Workstation 8 on Linux. It does *not* allow for creating new Mac OS VMs using the GUI, though. Getting that to work would make your unlocker perfect.

 

Thanks for your work!

[Zenith432]

It works in so far as I was able to boot my existing Snow Leopard image in Workstation 8 on Linux. It does *not* allow for creating new Mac OS VMs using the GUI, though. Getting that to work would make your unlocker perfect.

You can create a new VM of any guest OS type, and then before starting it for the 1st time, manually edit the VMX file and set "guestOS = X" where X is one of darwin,darwin-64,darwin10,darwin10-64,darwin11,darwin11-64.

The ability to view the darwin options in the UI needs a patch to vmwarebase.{dll,so,dylib} - a work in progress. The darwin options work if set in the VMX file.

[Donk]

You can create a new VM of any guest OS type, and then before starting it for the 1st time, manually edit the VMX file and set "guestOS = X" where X is one of darwin,darwin-64,darwin10,darwin10-64,darwin11,darwin11-64.

The ability to view the darwin options in the UI needs a patch to vmwarebase.{dll,so,dylib} - a work in progress. The darwin options work if set in the VMX file.

FYI - I have given Zenith432 my patches for this dll/so but they are not ideal. Zenith432 is looking at patching the internal data table rather than then code which I currently do, which means it will be more robust for future versions.

[Zenith432]

I uploaded a completed version, link is in post.

 

• Contains a Windows build Unlocker.exe.
  
• Patches vmwarebase on Windows, Linux, OSX. So a complete patch - darwin guestoses should show up in UI.
  

I ended up using Donk's patches for vmwarebase verbatim. As Donk mentioned, this patch may not carry over to future revisions released by VMware, as it relies on certain code sequences in the executables.

 

Donk provided the paths for the various systems. ESXi is not supported.

 

The Windows version is fully tested. You may need to manually kill processes locking vmwarebase.dll.

The Fusion version is partially tested - I checked it patches as expected on a test copy of vmwarebase, not an installed copy of Fusion.

The Linux version wasn't tested at all - so good luck with that

[Donk]

I uploaded a completed version, link is in post #43.

 

• Contains a Windows build Unlocker.exe.
  
• Patches vmwarebase on Windows, Linux, OSX. So a complete patch - darwin guestoses should show up in UI.
  

 

I ended up using Donk's patches for vmwarebase verbatim. As Donk mentioned, this patch may not carry over to future revisions released by VMware, as it relies on certain code sequences in the executables.

 

Donk provided the paths for the various systems. ESXi is not supported.

 

The Windows version is fully tested. You may need to manually kill processes locking vmwarebase.dll.

The Fusion version is partially tested - I checked it patches as expected on a test copy of vmwarebase, not an installed copy of Fusion.

The Linux version wasn't tested at all - so good luck with that

 

The Linux build is for 64-bit (Unlocker.Linux64.) For 32-bit linux, build your own with the Makefile there. You need GCC C++ installed.

 

 

I'd like to thank Zenith432 for doing this so quickly. Whilst you can run these directly there is some benefit to having some script to disable VMware services before applying the patches. I will knock these out as soon as possible.

 

One questions - shall we start a new thread for this new way to patch?

[gokumba]

The Linux version wasn't tested at all - so good luck with that

 

Almost there - patching libvmwarebase.so.0 fails because it's in its own sub-directory on Linux:

 

Patching /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libvmwarebase.so.0
open failed Is a directory

 

You'll find a trivial patch to fix that here: http://paste.pocoo.org/raw/483395/

 

After applying that, your unlocker works perfectly for me. Including creating VMs from the GUI.

 

(Thanks, I was aware of the possibility to edit the vmx file, indeed, but I'm constructively lazy. ;-) )

[Donk]

Almost there - patching libvmwarebase.so.0 fails because it's in its own sub-directory on Linux:

 

Patching /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libvmwarebase.so.0
open failed Is a directory

 

You'll find a trivial patch to fix that here: http://paste.pocoo.org/raw/483395/

 

After applying that, your unlocker works perfectly for me. Including creating VMs from the GUI.

 

(Thanks, I was aware of the possibility to edit the vmx file, indeed, but I'm constructively lazy. ;-) )

OK I will build some new Linux executables tomorrow. Thanks for helping out.

[Zenith432]

You'll find a trivial patch to fix that here

Thanks. I uploaded a fixed version with your patch. FWIW, Donk actually gave me the correct path, but I didn't think .so files were nested like that on Linux, so I removed a component

[Donk]

Thanks. I uploaded a fixed version with your patch. FWIW, Donk actually gave me the correct path, but I didn't think .so files were nested like that on Linux, so I removed a component

Tested Windows, 64-bit Linux and 32-bit Linux and runs fine. For Windows I am half way through writing a small script to install/uninstall which stops and start any programs that may block the patcher.

[bienemaya]

Dear Zenith432,

 

first of all, many thanks for creating this wonderful patcher for VMware Workstation 8.

 

I tried the windows patcher to patch WKS8 32bit on Win7 32bit, but the patcher did not find the installed product in the registry. Unlocker.cpp Line 367: RegQueryValueEx[2] failed.

 

After creating the additional regkey InstallPath64 pointing to the same InstallPath directory the patcher will work and find the files. Maybe you will adjust your code to handle 32bit systems.

 

 

For me, vmwarebase.dll was locked and unable to patch (you mentioned it). I close the vmware-tray and execute "net stop vmauthdservice" before and "net start vmauthdservice" after the patch and all things went well.

 

Best regards

[Zenith432]

I tried the windows patcher to patch WKS8 32bit on Win7 32bit, but the patcher did not find the installed product in the registry. Unlocker.cpp Line 367: RegQueryValueEx[2] failed.

 

After creating the additional regkey InstallPath64 pointing to the same InstallPath directory the patcher will work and find the files. Maybe you will adjust your code to handle 32bit systems.

Fair enough, it's a bug I didn't take into account that on 32-bit Windows InstallPath64 isn't there and only need to patch 32-bit binaries. I'll only be able to fix it next week, so in the meantime either your workaround or Donk's unlocker can be used on Windows32.

 

Fusion 4.0.2 has also been released, so need to check libvmwarebase.dylib there to see if the same patch still applies. I Hope Donk looks into that.

[Donk]

Fair enough, it's a bug I didn't take into account that on 32-bit Windows InstallPath64 isn't there and only need to patch 32-bit binaries. I'll only be able to fix it next week, so in the meantime either your workaround or Donk's unlocker can be used on Windows32.

 

Fusion 4.0.2 has also been released, so need to check libvmwarebase.dylib there to see if the same patch still applies. I Hope Donk looks into that.

 

Let me have a look at both the Windows and Fusion issues.

[Donk]

Let me have a look at both the Windows and Fusion issues.

Fusion 4.0.2 is fine the patcher runs without any issues.

[Vice]

I've used your patches for Workstation 7 and 8. Your patches work great and I just wanted to say thank you for making such a valuable contribution to the community. Thanks Donk

[AxeL__17]

Thnx for the great work guys!!!

 

I'm now on Fusion4/WS8 with both Lion and SnowLeo VMs.

 

Since SL was from WS7 I installed the 3.1.1 tools and Zenith audio driver;

now that the 4.0.2 tools support also the audio should I uninstall Zenith audio

driver and update the tools?

 

Ciao

[Elproducto]

Tried the patch.

Created new virtual machine in vmware fusion 4.0.1

Host OS = lion

Guest = Snow Leopard

 

Selected snow leopard server as OS, because Snow Leopard is not in the list.

 

Resulted in a 'fault message':

 

A fault has occurred causing a virtual CPU to enter a shutdown state.

 

Can anyone tell us if we need to do something specific when creating the new virtual machine?

 

Thanks!

 

I am having the same Issue with the same setup. I have attached the log and config file. Not sure what to try next.

Mac_OS_X_Server_10.6_64_bit.txt

vmware.txt

[Zenith432]

I tried the windows patcher to patch WKS8 32bit on Win7 32bit, but the patcher did not find the installed product in the registry. Unlocker.cpp Line 367: RegQueryValueEx[2] failed.

 

After creating the additional regkey InstallPath64 pointing to the same InstallPath directory the patcher will work and find the files. Maybe you will adjust your code to handle 32bit systems.

I fixed this problem and uploaded a new version. The link is in post. It should run properly on 32-bit Windows now. People that artificially created a value called InstallPath64 for the patcher, please remove it.

[Donk]

I am having the same Issue with the same setup. I have attached the log and config file is below. Not sure what to try next.

Please edit the post and remove the VMX file. Attach VMX to the post do not add inline. Also add vmware.log file

[luckman212]

I tried to look at the most recent posts but I was a bit confused -- what is the current/latest unlocker for workstation 8 (471780) ? There seem to be a few different versions floating around.... thanks

[Donk]

I tried to look at the most recent posts but I was a bit confused -- what is the current/latest unlocker for workstation 8 (471780) ? There seem to be a few different versions floating around.... thanks

There are 2 things happening. I released one that was version specific and patched Workstation 8 & Fusion 4. I then worked with Zenith432 who kindly offered to build a generic unlocker that would be less version dependent. This is still work in progress but Zenith432 post 43 has a link to his latest work which as of the last update looks complete. I have written scripts for Windows due to certain things blocking the patch but work is a priority for me at the moment. I will try and fit it in between meetings today.