Ever tried to copy-paste from your computer to a VMWare virtual machine through the vSphere Client? Not working? Well, that’s normal according to VMWare. Starting with vSphere 4.1, copy-paste is disabled by default. See here for reference on VMWare website.
Here is an easy way to enable it for all VMs at once.
- Log into the service console. If you are not familiar on how to do that, click here to see my quick post on the subject.
- Edit file /etc/vmware/config
vi /etc/vmware/config
- Add the following two lines to the end of the file
isolation.tools.copy.disable="FALSE" isolation.tools.paste.disable="FALSE"
If you’re not familiar with vi text editor, this step can be a bit tricky so here are detailed steps. - Once in vi editor, before doing anything, press the “i” key, this will enable insert mode.
- Scroll to the end of the file and to the end of the line and press Enter to add a blank line.
- Copy the text and paste it using your right mouse button.
- Press ESCAPE key to go out of insert mode
- Type “:wq” command to write the file and quit
- You’re done. Config will be enabled on the next reboot of each VM.
Note: These options do not persist after an upgrade. If you upgrade to a newer version after enabling these options, the changes are lost and you may have to re-enable them.