The new release includes over 50 bugfixes + security fixes.
And:
- Support for Live Debugging with Visual Studio 2010
- Fixed issues with Windows 7 SP1 Beta, RHEL 6.0 Beta and Fedora 13.
- Its also supposed to be improved performance with “NAT”.
- And its tested with VMware Converter 4.3

The release notes can be found here.

So how do I kill a Virtual Machine?

I wrote this post, back in 2009, for ESX 3.5:
http://technoblog.org/2009/01/how-to-kill-a-stuck-or-hung-vm-vmware-esx-35/

Both the “vmware-cmd /.vmx stop hard” method, and the following methods work, sometimes.. :

1. sudo vm-support -x
2. sudo less -S /proc/vmware/vm//cpu/status
3. sudo /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmkload_app -k 9

But, when both of those fail? Then what?
How to kill a stuck VM when everything else fails?

It’s a bit brutal, but it works, but be warned, you might corrupt your VM.

1. sudo bash (for simplicity)
2. ps -ax | grep 3. Find the first number to the left, in the string with the right VM. This is the PID.
4. kill -9

Brutal? Yes. Efficient? Yes.

VMware Workstation 7.0 Release notes:

http://www.vmware.com/support/ws7/doc/releasenotes_ws7.html

VMware Fusion 3.0 New Features:
http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-10957

A list of the most interesting new features in VMware Workstation:

256-bit Encryption — Secure your virtual machines with AES256-bit encryption to prevent unauthorized users from accessing or running the configuration files.

Pause a Virtual Machine — Free your CPU resources instantaneously without powering off or suspending the virtual machine.

Four-Way SMP — Create and run virtual machines with a total of four processor cores, which can consist of four single-core processors, two dual-core processors, or one quad-core processor like the new Intel i7.

AutoProtect —Schedule snapshots of your virtual machine to be created at a regular interval to ensure that you always have a snapshot available to revert to when needed.

Virtual Printing — Print from virtual machines without mapping network printers or installing printer drivers in the virtual machine. With virtual printing enabled in the virtual machine setting, all of the printers installed on the host operating system are available in the guest operating system. This functionality is enabled through a partnership with ThinPrint, Inc.

Cross-Platform License Keys — Use the VMware Workstation 7.0 license key on both the Windows and Linux versions. Make sure you read the EULA for the terms and conditions that must be met when switching platforms.

Expand Virtual Disks — Increase the size of the virtual disk from within VMware Workstation. For Windows Vista and Windows 7 guests, the disk partitions can be adjusted without the use of additional software.

Compact Virtual Disks — Reclaim unused space from a virtual disk so that the host or another virtual machine can use it.

Drag and Drop Enhancements — Drag and drop enhancements include support for new file types including images and formatted text and extend the existing ability to drag and drop files to a broader set of guest and host operating systems.

Virtual Network Editor — User interface enhancements have simplified creating and configuring virtual networks.

IPv6 Support — Create a bridged connection to an IPv6 network on VMware Workstation virtual machines.

Fuse Mount for Linux — Use Fuse to mount .vmdk disks on to the file system of Linux hosts.

If anyone got any experience with the new products (or upgrading) feel free to share!

or as root just:
service mgmt-vmware stop
service mgmt-vmware start
or:
service mgmt-vmware restart

This would be the solution if you can’t connect to the box using VMware Infrastructure Client, like if you get an error saying:
Error Connecting
VMware Infrastructure Client could not establish the initial connection with the server ““.
Details: The server took too long to respond.

1. Hook up a screen and a keyboard to the VMWae ESXi server.
2. Press “Alt+F1″
3. Write “unsupported” and press Enter (if you screw up, and think you’ve typed something wrong,
you can use Ctrl+U to clear the input field).
4. Enter the root password, an voila, shell access.

A general system error occurred: Internal Error
This Product has expired. Be sure that your host machine’s date and time are set correctly.

The products affected are:

• VMware ESX 3.5.x
• VMware ESXi 3.5.x Embedded
• VMware ESXi 3.5.x Installable

There is a knowledge base article about it: Unable to Power On virtual machine with “A General System error occurred: Internal error”

But according to the kb article:

An issue with ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2 causes the product license to expire on August 12, 2008. VMware engineering has isolated the root cause of this issue and will reissue the various upgrade media including the ESX 3.5 Update 2 ISO, ESXi 3.5 Update 2 ISO, ESX 3.5 Update 2 upgrade tar and zip files by noon, PST on August 13. These will be available from the page: http://www.vmware.com/download/vi. Until then, VMware advises against upgrading to ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2.

The Update patch bundles will be released separately later in the week

So? What if you’ve already upgraded. Some of you might run your entire infrastructure on ESX, and if “waiting for a patch” doesn’t sound like a suitable solution, there is a workaround!

The Workaround

Note: This is only tested on a ESXi 3.5 machine. If you try it on a ESX machine you might need to change the date format, just give it a try.

1. Log in to the Service Console (its the Command Line Interface).

2. Write date -s “08102008″ and press enter.

You should now be able to power on your Virtual Machines (or resume them).

Note: You are setting back the date, so if you are running critical infrastructure on your virtual machines, you might want to turn of “host time sync”. So your VMs won’t sync the time with the server. And if you are running NTP on your ESX/i-server you should turn it off (if you don’t, there is no point in setting back the time).

You also might want to set the time further back, like a couple of weeks, depending on how long time you think VMWare will use to get the patch ready.

Read the details here: WMware Fusion 2 Beta 2