VMWare Workstation 14.1.6 fragged my macOS install - reboot loop

[cgilley]

Bear with me please, the vmware site is almost hopeless, so I ran across insanelymac.. So, I have a fairly high end laptop that has enabled me to push much of my development environment into virtual machines.  One of these VMs was a macOS High Sierra install.  As a developer, I always have an interest in learning new things, and some of my co-workers are Apple advocates.  Plus, there was some s/w I wanted to try that would only work on the mac.  Using unlocker, etc, I was easily able to create a Mac workstation (what the hell do you call this - mac, macos, apple, mac VM?  lol, I don't have the lingo down right....).  I've been using it for the last 4 months.

 

Then came the VM Workstation 14.1.6 update.  It kept nagging at me, so I finally allowed it to install.  Brain fart on my part, I should have backed up all of my virtual machines.  All the Windows VMs came through fine, but the Mac is stuck in a perpetual re-boot cycle.  I'm sure this is a vmware issue, but I was hoping maybe a reader has seen this before and has some ideas.  I've gone through the vmware logs until my eyes bleed - lots of interesting but useless information...

 

regards,

 

cg

 

[cgilley]

No one?  <sniff>

[cgilley]

Okay, I figured this out.

 

Updating VMWare will replace files supplied by unlocker.  The correct approach to upgrades:

 

- shut all VMs down and exit VM whatever

- uninstall unlocker

- upgrade VM whatever to where you want to go.

- go get the latest unlocker and follow the instructions.  hint: readme.txt is named that way, because you need to read it

- off you go.

 

I was not aware that unlocker actually modified files in VMWare, so when I upgraded, it all came off the rails.  I hope this helps someone.