Rename vm (files) on vmware workstation

Question

When I rename a virtual machine in vmware workstation, the old file names (e.g.: the hard drive file name) remains.

How do I manually rename these without messing up the virtual machine?

I'm not using the newest vmware workstation version.

Answer 1

The vmx file that stores the virtual machine's configuration is a just a text file. You can just rename all of the vm's files and then edit the vmx to point to those files.

Answer 2

You can rename files of VM without any VMware software. Or using bare-minimum VMware Player only.

First stop virtual machine and exit VMware Player if you do not done already.

Go to VM data folder (the one with your big VM files) and find few descriptor files alongside many virtual disk (VMDK) files. You only need to edit two files with your favorite text editor, namely:

1. In VMX file this three properties are related:

   • scsi0:0.fileName
   • nvram
   • extendedConfigFile

   --> Just edit/change all of them with new name.

2. In VMDK file under # Extent description section you will find sub-vmdk file names that all should be renamed, acording to your new name.

3. Rename (manually or with renaming software) all VMDK-files on the file system, but you should remain intact (do not edit) last few (most often 5) characters, which are indexes (i.e. -s001.vmdk;-s002.vmdk, etc.)

Answer 3

I use the import option to do this. This way I can keep a base VM on a share someplace called base-XP or whatever, then when I need a new test VM, I do an import and the disks are named according to the setting I specify when going through the import wizard.

Answer 4

If you are running vmware workstation 8, you can use the cloning function (VM-> Manage -> Clone), you can then give a new name to the cloned VM.

Answer 5

You can follow what @Georgi Hristov suggested, but I found that the old name also exists within those vmware-*.log and -S00.vmdk files, so I took @xyutech's suggestion and found out using the built-in clone function is the easiest way to create a new VM with a different name. Here is a screen shot .

One caveat, all cloned files will be place under the selected folder, so you should pick an empty folder when asked.