How to do Workstation 9 upload/download VMs from vSphere or other workstation servers?

[SteveEsx]

Hi

VMware Workstation 9 is supposed to be able to upload/download to vSphere servers and other vmware workstation hosts in server modus from what I can understand. However when I try to drag and drop VMs from my connected servers with either workstation or vSphere all I get is a not allowed sign on my mouse cursor?

What are the requirements for upload/download VMs between workstation and vSphere or other workstation servers? How should I perform the upload or download (drag & drop doesn't seem to allow this)?

Our vSphere cluster runs 5.0u1 (esxi), 6 hosts controlled by vcenter. I have another older Dell PowerEdge server that runs windows 2008 r2 with vmware workstation installed and I use the "client" vmware workstation on my desktop (win 8).

I've tried googling for this but can't find any good answers or example videos of how it is supposed to work, maybe I'm not using the right search words

Thanks for any answers

[continuum]

I doubt that this is implemented yet  ???

[schepp]

From the Workstation 9 release notes:

Downloading Virtual Machines from vSphere

Workstation 8 enabled customers to upload virtual machines to vSphere. Workstation 9 now enables downloading virtual machines from vSphere by dragging them from the remote host to the My Computer section of the Virtual Machine Library.

So it should be implemented Don't know how though, since I only got workstation 8 here

[continuum]

the only way I see how to do that is by selecting a VM - right click it and then select Manage.

If the VM is now on WS you can select Upload and then select a connected host.
If the VM is now on a connected host you get the option Download.

drag'n'drop ? - well  .... Papier ist geduldig 😉

[SteveEsx]

Looks like it is a GUI "bug", I noticed that if I right click on a VM in the vcenter server then I get no options except "open" (all else is greyed out). But if I double click on the VM so its information is loaded on the right side of the display first then the Manage option is enabled (with download option). In windows it is not common that right click option on a tree view changes depending if you have double clicked the object first so I think that is a bad design.

Drag & drop does not work also if you have not first double clicked on the VM to display its info on the right side which is kind of silly.

So the correct procedure for download VM from vsphere to vmware workstation becomes rather silly like this:

1. start vmware workstation
2. connect to server (vcenter), enter credentials
3. find VM in workstation library view of vcenter
4. double click on the VM you want (important step that is IMHO a GUI design fault, not very intuitive)
5. Now you can either drag & drop or righ click menu -> manage -> download

Now I will test if the VM actually works after dowloading

[schepp]

Guess that's a feature to avoide beeing sued, since apple holds all patents for intuitive operations. scrn

Sounds like there are some information that need to be loaded before the drag & drop work. Ideally that should happen after a single click and not a double. Screams for a bug report

Regards

[continuum]

looks like upload/download uses OVF routines - that means you will only get a VM that is similar to the one you selected

[SteveEsx]

yes I'm currious to see if the changes being done on the fly will create problems with licensing on some software applications. However the process seems to work very well so far, the image started at once without problems. Will do more testing to verify though since this will be a very useful feature for giving our images more power on servers when we need it or make them portable for demos.