How to make screenshots using VMWare tool “vmrun”?

Question

I'm currently working with the vmrun-Tool, to control VMWare Virtual Machines. I'm using VMWareWorkstation 7.0.0/7.0.1 and VMWarePlayer 3.0.0 on Windows 7 x64.

I simply want to take a screenshot of each virtual machine which is powered on.

Listing the power-on virtual machines is quite simply and works! (vmrun list)

But the captureScreen command doesn't work. I have tried several commandline options.

For example:

vmrun -T ws captureScreen %VMPATH% %OUTPUTPATH%

I get no error message, but the console is blocked (and the command never finishes).

I have also tried to include -gu USERNAME and -gp PASSWORD, but it results in the same problem.

Answer 1

I tried to run the statement in my questition via VMWare Player 3.1 and it worked. I guess I might also work using the new VMWare Workstation (7.1).

Answer 2

Be sure the user/pass that you use for '-gu' and '-gp' are a valid username and password for the guest OS not the host.

I had the same trouble as you because I was using "root" and "root_pwd" for my user/pass, then I realized it had to be a pasword inside the guest.

vmrun -T ws -gu GUEST_USER -gp GUEST_PASS captureScreen %VMPATH% %OUTPUTPATH%

Also, the %OUTPATH% needs to be a png. The captureScreen command outputs in PNG.