Errors with Vmware crashing with windows 7 as guest

Question

Every time I try to change the theme for my windows 7 guest machine, do anything that would change appearance, or anything involving aero at all, vmware gives me a dialog that says

"Vmware Player unrecoverable error: (svga) Unexpected signal: 11. A log file is available in [path to vm folder]/windows 7/vmware.log. You can request support.

To collect data to submit..."etc etc

I really want aero, and I really need windows 7, I need a stable vm with some eye candy, and if aero is a no go then I'd really ask for suggestions of another vm manager/player but if there is any way to do it under vmware that would be much preferred. Please tell me how I can stop the errors and get aero working, that's all I really need to know right now.

Answer 1

The ability to run Aero will depend on your host system's graphics ability, which must exceed the requirements for Aero as running in it a VM requires more resources than running it on a host. You will need Vmware Tools installed on the guest, 3D graphics support enabled in the VM's settings, and you should run a system assessment to get a Windows Experience Index Rating in Windows. When Windows runs the system assessment it will determine if you VM is capable of handling Aero, and automatically enable it if it is.

Steps:

[The included screenshots are from a Windows 8 host. If you are using an Ubuntu host the layout of VMware Player is slightly different.]

[You will need to remove the # from the http#s:// in the screenshot links when putting them into your browser]

1. With the VM powered off (not suspended) open it's settings, and check the box for 3D graphics support.

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2. Power on the VM, install VMware Tools, and reboot the guest.

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3. Open the control center. Click on "System & Security", "System" , then click "system rating not available", and finally "rate this computer".

   [During this step you should not have any other programs open on the host or guest as it will negatively impact your system rating. If you are using a laptop you should plug it in. This should take between 3-8 minutes on most systems.]

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Notes:

1. I have had system acessments fail to enable Aero once in a blue moon on systems that actually were capable of running it. If this happens you can run the accessment again, or in extreme cases you can manually adjust your Windows appearance settings to "best appearance" after which a reboot may be needed to get Areo working.

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2. As far as virtual graphics cards go VMware Player & VMware Workstation have better implementations than their competitors so I would not advise switching to another product to get Aero. However VirtualBox does support Aero via an experimental driver.