VMWare Tools fails to install (Windows 7)

[TECH198]

I have done a clean install of Windows 7 under VMWare Fusion 12, but certain drivers fail to install:

No idea what this is..

Shared folders fails: (HGFS)

VMWare Tools now asks to install Video driver as it's signed. (only appears on Windows 7)

How to install shared folders? As VMWare Tools now packages everything into "Setup" file. no more standalone drivers folder anymore.

[Technogeezer]

It takes a little creativity to figure out what you have available in the VM without VMware Tools and an obsolete browser that doesn’t support todays security features. 

You have networking. You can configure Windows file sharing on your Mac (see macOS documentation for instructions).  Put the updates in that shared folder.  Mount that folder using Windows Explorer in the VM, and copy the updates to your VMs hard drive. This doesn’t need a web browser. 

You have a virtual CD drive. You can create an ISO of a folder and mount that ISO on the drive. Or burn the folder to a real CD and mount that to the VM. Use Windows Explorer to copy the files.  

You have USB device support. Copy the updates to a FAT formatted USB stick. Connect that USB device to the VM. Use Windows Explorer to copy the files. 

[RDPetruska]

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@summia2020 wrote:

but how did you copy the updates to the VM for installation, since VMWARE tools is not installed, cannot copy files from host to the VM.

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The VMware Tools' Shared Folder feature backdoor is only one method of transferring files between the host computer and a virtual machine.  As Technogeezer stated in his reply, he enabled Windows File Sharing and used that (which, honestly, using bog-standard Windows File Sharing / CIFS or SAMBA is a *much* more robust and secure approach than the backdoor).  Another method would be to "burn" the files to an ISO image (or physical CD, but not needed since Fusion can mount an ISO image just like a physical CD/DVD), mount the image to the VM and copy the files from the VM's CD-ROM drive to its hard drive.