Workstation 7 on Win7, multiple taskbar instances

[CapnBry]

When running VMWare Workstation 7 on Windows 7, VMWare always indicates there are multiple instances running. 1 for the application itself, and 1 for each tab that is open in the application, regardless of its running status. This is very confusing when I usually have 5-6 tabs open, but only 1 of them is actually running. I know there's an icon on the top of each preview indicating if it is Suspended or Running, but at a quick glance it is hard to find the one running instance.

Is there a way to only have 1 taskbar instance, or only show the running VMs in the taskbar rather than all of them?

[mdunn-vmware · Accepted solution]

There is no config setting to control Aero thumbnails, but we've had other requests specifically about making it more obvious which VMs are suspended and which are running (since they both show a screen shot, and are differentiated only by the icon). This is under consideration for a future version of Workstation.

[mikkeee]

Please throw another name in the hat for users who do want you to update this feature! I have one virtual machine running but show 4 preview windows (very annoying). To be consistant with this great new Windows 7 feature I would reccomend the following:

• Display the aero peek window ONLY for each virtual machine that is running.

• Display all the other virtual machines which are in the favorites via the jumplist.

• Fix the 'Pin in Taskbar' feature so it doesn't show multiple icons in the taskbar. I did find the workaround but this should be fixed.

The above request would make it perfect for me and consistant with every other application I use that takes advantage of this feature (Word, Excel, Firefox, etc)

[gust800]

I have same problem. I run often one VMmachine for a whole day, other 5 are turned off. I minimize vmware, and when i come back i must search my running machine through thumbnail preview. when i chose wrong, then i must chose second time from opend vmware... i hate this thumbnail preview feature. please make option to turn off thumbnail preview. sorry for my english.

[mdunn-vmware]

• Fix the 'Pin in Taskbar' feature so it doesn't show multiple icons in the taskbar. I did find the workaround but this should be fixed.

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What steps are you doing that results in multiple icons? What was the workaround that you found?

[mikkeee]

For multiple icons click the Start -&gt; All Programs -&gt; VMWare and then Right-Click on the VMWare Workstation Icon and click Pin to Taskbar. This places the VMWare Workstation icon on the taskbar. Now click on it. Another VMWare Workstation icon appears on the taskbar when VMWare starts.

To fix it you must first Unpin the taskbar icon you created by the process above where there are now no VMWare Workstation icons in your taskbar. Start VMWare Workstation under programs. You may now Right-Click on the running application icon in the taskbar and then Right-Click and select "Pin this program to taskbar".

[mdunn-vmware]

That was a bug in 6.5 that was fixed in 7.0. Can you still get that to happen with a 7.0 or 7.1 installation?

[mikkeee]

It is broken in the current version (see attachment).

I'm on 7.0.1 build-227600

[CapnBry]

Confirming what mikkeee said, Workstation 7.0.1 build-227600 exhibits this behavior. One icon is the pinned quick launch item, the other is the running instance of vmware with all its tabs. Note that this only occurs if you select "Pin to taskbar" from the start menu. A running instance of vmware can be pinned without this issue by selecting "Pin this program to the taskbar" from the vmware taskbar system menu (context menu from right-clicking the running vmware instance).

The lnk when pinned from the Start Menu is 2,060 bytes and the lnk when pinned from the running application is 1,349 bytes.

[mikkeee]

FYI. I just installed version 7.1 and the "Pin to Taskbar" issue seems to be resolved.

[mdunn-vmware]

Sorry about the confusion. I thought that the bug had been fixed, but I checked our bug tracker and it's still open. I've asked the installer team to include this fix the next time we release an update to 7.1.

[howlingmad]

I've asked the installer team to include this fix the next time we release an update to 7.1.

I vote for this one too. Having just updated from 7.0 last week, i can reproduce this with 7.1 (Host: Windows 7 x64). However, the workaround mikkeee posted worked for me as well.

Thank you folks for this amazing new release.

Regards,

Markus

[nojf]

In Excel/Word 2010 Options there is checkbox "Show all windows in the Taskbar". I vote for this feature in future version of VMware Workstation.

[Sean_C]

I just upgraded from Workstation 6.5 to 7.1.3 and I find this "feature" incredibly annoying.  At the least, please give us the option to turn the behavior off.  I'd much rather just be able to click on the taskbar icon and then choose which machine I want from the tabs.  The vast majority of the time I click on the VMware icon on the taskbar I want the current VM.

Seriously, imagine if Google Chrome / Firefox / IE did this for every open tab in the browser, or if MS Excel did this for each worksheet in an open spreadsheet.

As far as I'm concerned this is an impediment to my productivity.

Please give us the option to choose in the next update.

Thanks

Sean

[scottmurphy]

I have recently upgraded Workstation to 7.1.4, and noticed this issue arise.

The fix highlighted here worked for me too. BUT, something else has now changed. Now the view of all the VM's now shows whether they are stopped or running, whereas before it used to do an aero-peak. Is this something that has changed with the new release..?

[nojf]

VMware Workstation 8 for Windows have the checkbox "Show Aero Peek thumbnails for open tabs". Thanks VMware!