Mac OS X guest unlocker for VMware

[northcob]

Good day.

 

I wrote a little program which allows to create a virtual machine and run any flavor of Mac OS X

• Mac OS X
  
• Mac OS X Server
  

inside the virtual machine, using any VMware product

• VMware Workstation for Windows
  
• VMware Workstation for Linux
  
• VMware Fusion for Mac OS X
  

on any Intel-based physical machine

• PC
  
• Mac
  

I hope you will enjoy it. For details, please read the file README.txt. Give me your feedback about it in this forum.

 

On Mac OS program is trying to modify /Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion

I think this is being moved into the VMware application package. So an equivalent path would be:

/Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app/Contents/Library

 

Hope this helps. Bill

 

My bad.

 

I failed to read the help!

 

I just needed to run

 

./macosx /Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app/Contents/Library /Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app/Contents/MacOS/VMware\ Fusion

 

Then all is good.

Many thanks

[Fiesel]

try sudo sh ./linux

 

(by default current directory is not searched for files to run, unlike windows)

 

 

 

p.s. not good idea to introduce quiz requirement for ones who arleady posted here...

Awesome!

patch applied perfectly...

 

Thx for the help, buddy

[Aaron44126]

Looks like VMware Workstation 8 was released late yesterday. Anyone tried this patch with it yet? Scared to upgrade. :-P

[MSoK]

Looks like VMware Workstation 8 was released late yesterday. Anyone tried this patch with it yet? Scared to upgrade. :-P

Aaron,

 

Fusion 4.0.1 was also released, I would hang on until a new "Unlocker" has been created for Workstation 8, hopefully in the pipe.

[kup]

Happy to be a guinea pig. BRB..

[Aaron44126]

Output from the patch on VMware Workstation 8:

 

-----

Mac OS X guest unlocker for VMware, version 7

 

Directory C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\x64:

File vmware-vmx.exe:

Unlocking Mac OS X guest on non-Mac host ...

Unlocking Mac OS X Client guest (method 0) ...

File vmware-vmx-debug.exe:

Unlocking Mac OS X guest on non-Mac host ...

Unlocking Mac OS X Client guest (method 0) ...

File vmware-vmx-stats.exe:

Unlocking Mac OS X guest on non-Mac host ...

Unlocking Mac OS X Client guest (method 0) ...

 

File C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\vmwarebase.dll:

Unlocking Mac OS X guest on non-Mac OS X host (method 1) ...

Too few match sites.

-----

 

Despite the fact that one of the patches appears to have failed, I am able to boot up my existing OS X 10.7 VM. I haven't tried creating an OS X VM from scratch so I don't know if that would be affected at all. There's also a new "VMware Workstation Server" service that is not restarted at the end of the patching process.

 

 

I also stole the OS X VMware Tools from VMware Fusion 4.0.1 and installed those (seeing as that OS X is officially supported over there now, I figured that there would be improvements).

 

There are a few issues that weren't there in VMware Workstation 7.5. I don't think they're related to the OS X "unlock" patch, but rather VMware Tools (or VMware itself).

 

- At the login screen the input seems to really lag... I had to try a few times to enter my password properly, only works if you go really slow.

- After logging in input is fine. However the video seems a little more laggy than before (animations opening windows and so forth).

- Also my mouse doesn't always leave the window properly. VMware likes to suck it back in. Moving it out quickly seems to work more often or using Ctrl+Alt to release it.

- A sub-point of the above... if I run in full-screen mode (on one of my two monitors), it is nearly impossible to get VMware to release the mouse. Ctrl+Alt doesn't work.

 

I'm going to revert to the previous version of VMware Tools and see if they are at fault or if it is something deeper in VMware.

 

[Edit]

 

Using previous version of VMware Tools didn't help at all, all of the problems listed above remain. (Even restored from a backup to make sure that no remains of the newer version of VMware Tools were present.) The mouse issue in particular makes the OS X VM pretty unusable.

[MSoK]

Despite the fact that one of the patches appears to have failed, I am able to boot up my existing OS X 10.7 VM. I haven't tried creating an OS X VM from scratch so I don't know if that would be affected at all. There's also a new "VMware Workstation Server" service that is not restarted at the end of the patching process.

 

I also stole the OS X VMware Tools from VMware Fusion 4.0.1 and installed those (seeing as that OS X is officially supported over there now, I figured that there would be improvements).

 

There are a few issues that weren't there in VMware Workstation 7.5. I don't think they're related to the OS X "unlock" patch, but rather VMware Tools (or VMware itself).

 

- At the login screen the input seems to really lag... I had to try a few times to enter my password properly, only works if you go really slow.

- After logging in input is fine. However the video seems a little more laggy than before (animations opening windows and so forth).

- Also my mouse doesn't always leave the window properly. VMware likes to suck it back in. Moving it out quickly seems to work more often or using Ctrl+Alt to release it.

- A sub-point of the above... if I run in full-screen mode (on one of my two monitors), it is nearly impossible to get VMware to release the mouse. Ctrl+Alt doesn't work.

 

Using previous version of VMware Tools didn't help at all, all of the problems listed above remain. (Even restored from a backup to make sure that no remains of the newer version of VMware Tools were present.) The mouse issue in particular makes the OS X VM pretty unusable.

Aaron,

 

Thanks for the update, I am pretty sure Donk has a new vmwarebase.dll as part of the Workstation 8 "Unlocker" he has been working on, so do not with the greatest of respect waste too much time using Albert's "Unlocker" which was designed for Workstation 7, a signifcantly different base code if ESXi 5 is any guide. I am sure the new "Unlocker" will address all your issues, as we have seen with his new "ESXi 5 Unlocker".

[trentfox]

Has there been any progress on an unlocker, or at least a procedure for unlocking, the latest VMware version? I had a working Snow Leopard client on VMware Fusion 3.1, but after upgrading to version 4, Fusion refuses to start the VM because it isn't Server. In this case I already have a working vm, and all I need is a way to trick Fusion into starting SL client. The previous version of Albert's Unlocker no longer works on Fusion 4.

[MSoK]

Has there been any progress on an unlocker, or at least a procedure for unlocking, the latest VMware version? I had a working Snow Leopard client on VMware Fusion 3.1, but after upgrading to version 4, Fusion refuses to start the VM because it isn't Server. In this case I already have a working vm, and all I need is a way to trick Fusion into starting SL client. The previous version of Albert's Unlocker no longer works on Fusion 4.

trentfox,

 

Have a look at the following topics, will probably be more relevant moving forward with ESXi 5, Workstation 8, Player 4 and Fusion 4:

 

Donk's ESXi 5 Unlocker:

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...t&p=1745191

 

MSoK's How To "Snow" and "Lion":

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...t&p=1745457

 

Link to topic with some help on installing OS X without an "Unlocker":

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...t&p=1748794

[trentfox]

Thanks, Mac Son of Knife. I don't have a good sense of the relationship between ESXi and Fusion, or the elements that differ between running of Snow Leopard client on a vm in a Mac and doing this on a PC. (I'm sure the latter is more interesting and challenging!) So reading those threads gave me a general idea of the needed changes, but I wouldn't try to guess how they would be implemented in Fusion without either an "unlocker" or instructions for doing so in Fusion. The good news appears to be that Donk is working on this now, and I can wait if I have to. I have one stat program I use regularly that has PPC code in it (thus the need for a SL vm), but I can run that program on a Linux vm as well. Unfortunately, I don't have a dual boot option on my office Mac because it's a 2011 mini that can with Lion. I have yet to hear of a successful installation of SL on a mini of my vintage.

[WormFood]

VMware 8.0.0 on Linux, completely unlocked for OSX. woot!

 

I created a Linux patch file, with terse instructions on how to use it, which I'm attaching to my post, in the hopes it will be useful to someone.

 

Windows and Mac users: Sorry, this patch is only for the Linux version of VMware 8.0.0

 

The libvmwarebase.so.0 file is not patched with Albert's VMware 7 unlocker, but all the other files are patched just fine. Albert's VMware 7 unlocker just needs to be tweaked a little bit, to make it work on VMware 8. If I had the source code to the VMware 7 unlocker, I'd update it, but since it is not available (that I know of), I just patched the libvmwarebase.so.0 file by hand.

 

After applying the patch, I expected to see OSX 10.7 on the list when creating a new VM, but it is the same as VMware 7. Maybe future versions of VMware 8 will add official support for osx 10.7, or maybe my patch is incomplete.

 

I know my patch will be out of date very soon. I'm hoping that Albert will update his VMware 7 unlocker to support VMware 8, or at least make source code available so that others (like me) can update it.

 

Many thanks for Albert for his original VMware 7 unlocker; without it, I would not be able to make this patch. I take no credit for the changes made to VMware 8. I simply looked at the changes made to VMware 7, and applied the same changes to VMware 8. It would have taken me forever to figure out what to change on my own.

 

The usual disclaimers apply. If you break it, you get to keep both pieces, and we get to laugh at you.

VMware.8.0.0_Linux_libvmwarebase.so.0_patch.zip

[Zenith432]

There are unlockers for all of VMware's latest hypervisor variants.

 

1

 

2

 

3

 

The last one comes with source code.

[MSoK]

There are unlockers for all of VMware's latest hypervisor variants.

Zenith,

 

A question is your latest Unlocker that supports ESXi 5, with Donk's scripts build specific or is it generic, as I read somewhere you were intending to do this so a new Unlocker was not needed everytime VMware release a patch. I guess the same question applies to the desktop products as well, thanks for your excellent work,

 

MSoK.

[Zenith432]

A question is your latest Unlocker that supports ESXi 5, with Donk's scripts build specific or is it generic, as I read somewhere you were intending to do this so a new Unlocker was not needed everytime VMware release a patch. I guess the same question applies to the desktop products as well

• The ESXi 5 unlocker is generic. It should be run via the script there (install.sh) that was added by Donk.
  
• The Linux and OS X unlockers can be run "as is" with no scripts.
  
• The Windows unlocker can be run "as is", but any processes using vmwarebase.dll have to be terminated first - the tray, VMware Authorization Server, and possibly others.
  
• The Linux, OS X and Windows unlockers are generic insofar as patching to the hypervisor goes (the vmx binaries.) The patches to vmwarebase rely on certain code sequences in the binary, so may break in subsequent releases. I'll follow up on it if this happens, and maybe try to find a more robust method to identify the patch points.
  
• The Makefile can be used to compile for Linux, OS X and ESXi. For Windows, I have some Visual Studio project files which I didn't publish, but basically using some vanilla settings should build a working exe.
  

[MSoK]

• The ESXi 5 unlocker is generic. It should be run via the script there (install.sh) that was added by Donk.
  
• The Linux and OS X unlockers can be run "as is" with no scripts.
  
• The Windows unlocker can be run "as is", but any processes using vmwarebase.dll have to be terminated first - the tray, VMware Authorization Server, and possibly others.
  
• The Linux, OS X and Windows unlockers are generic insofar as patching to the hypervisor goes (the vmx binaries.) The patches to vmwarebase rely on certain code sequences in the binary, so may break in subsequent releases. I'll follow up on it if this happens, and maybe try to find a more robust method to identify the patch points.
  
• The Makefile can be used to compile for Linux, OS X and ESXi. For Windows, I have some Visual Studio project files which I didn't publish, but basically using some vanilla settings should build a working exe.
  

Zenith,

Thanks for the prompt response, and clarification. In terms of vmwarebase to confirm, this is cosmetic as it allows you to select OS X from the wizard, rather than modifying the vmx configuration file, but OS X will run without a modifed vmwarebase provided the other binaries are modified!

[OSXInstaller]

I have a problem installing Albert's Unlocker for VMware Workstation with Donk's updated 'windows.cmd' script [(windows.txt) 1.36K], from this Donks post --> http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...750&st=140#

 

I am using Workstation 7.1.4 (seeing build-16648 in Programs and Features in Control Panel, but in workstation build number is seen as build-385536). Host is Windows 7 32bit. In Workstation i have Windows XP virtual machine and have VT in quad core.

 

I downloaded the Donks updated text script and changed its extension to cmd and pasted in same directory of macosx_guest_vmware-7 as shown below.

 

 

I terminated all vmware processes and vmware services confirming no vmware processes, services restarting.

 

Opened command prompt with administrator privileges and executed windows.bat. But i am receiving different result as 'net' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file' on start than common results like 'VMware Authorization service is stopping' or 'restarting' at end of process etc as shown below.

 

 

I doubt the workstation is successfully patched?>. Rather than simply opening windows.bat as administrator, i opened command prompt, moved to folder and executed as shown above.

 

Please help ..

[Donk]

 

I doubt the workstation is successfully patched?>. Rather than simply opening windows.bat as administrator, i opened command prompt, moved to folder and executed as shown above.

 

Please help ..

 

Try renaming to .cmd not .bat as the command processor is different.

[OSXInstaller]

Try renaming to .cmd not .bat as the command processor is different.

 

You can see in above folder, there is already the windows.cmd updated script supplied by you.

If i change windows.bat to cmd then there will be two windows.cmd files!!

And readme.txt tells to execute windows.bat

[MSoK]

You can see in above folder, there is already the windows.cmd updated script supplied by you.

If i change windows.bat to cmd then there will be two windows.cmd files!!

And readme.txt tells to execute windows.bat

OSXI',

 

The bat file is the original one supplied by Albert and can be deleted run the windows.cmd, it is the updated version from Donk.

[kno3]

Hi there.

 

I there an unlocker available for Player 4 Linux x64? Have been going round and round searching for a while, to no avail.

 

If someone could point me in the right direction that would be fab! If not, are their any suggestions on what to do for the time being? (downgrade VMware, etc...?)

 

Thank you!

[MSoK]

Hi there.

 

I there an unlocker available for Player 4 Linux x64? Have been going round and round searching for a while, to no avail.

 

If someone could point me in the right direction that would be fab! If not, are their any suggestions on what to do for the time being? (downgrade VMware, etc...?)

 

Thank you!

kno3,

 

Have a look at my "How to" links for the "Generic" Unlocker with support for Windows, Linux, Fuson and ESXi:

 

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...t&p=1750634

[kno3]

kno3,

 

Have a look at my "How to" links for the "Generic" Unlocker with support for Windows, Linux, Fuson and ESXi:

 

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...t&p=1750634

Thanks for your reply! Will give it a shot.

[engowen]

Hi, I'm a newbie. I like to find out what do it takes to run Mac OS on VMware Server? I know this forum has been focusing on using VM player and workstation which I got mine to run fine. The error I got when I tried to run the Mac OS image directly without the unlocker is

 

Error:Guest operating system `darwin10-64' is not supported.

Please select a guest operating system from the General page on the Options tab of Virtual Machine Settings.

 

 

I'd referred to http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=268533 but I couldn't see any help. I hope there is a simple way like a batch file to enable the support.

 

Thanks!

[OXXYM.s]

Dear Mr. Albert Nietsnie

i want thank you for your work on the Mac OS X guest unlocker for VMware

and i wanna ask if you can provide us with the method to run the patch for the Linux OS:Ubuntu 11.10

 

thanks in advance

Regards

[MSoK]

Dear Mr. Albert Nietsnie

i want thank you for your work on the Mac OS X guest unlocker for VMware

and i wanna ask if you can provide us with the method to run the patch for the Linux OS:Ubuntu 11.10

 

thanks in advance

Regards

This thread is now superceeded by Workatation 8 and Player 4, with new a new universal "Unlocker" including linux, link below:

 

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...t&p=1750634

 

Hi, I'm a newbie. I like to find out what do it takes to run Mac OS on VMware Server? I know this forum has been focusing on using VM player and workstation which I got mine to run fine. The error I got when I tried to run the Mac OS image directly without the unlocker is

 

Error:Guest operating system `darwin10-64' is not supported.

Please select a guest operating system from the General page on the Options tab of Virtual Machine Settings.

 

I'd referred to http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=268533 but I couldn't see any help. I hope there is a simple way like a batch file to enable the support.

 

Thanks!

This is very unlikely to work, as VMware Server has very old code, you are better switching to Player 4, which is in effect the replacement for VMware Server, or if you want to go to a dedicated box use ESXi 5 which again is free, the link above and the one below give you relevant information and further links:

 

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...t&p=1745457