Power on A VM Automatically While Starting the Hosting System

It is very useful for IT engineers and Administrators to virtualize their hardware machines to get more flexibility and scalability when building an IT system or network, but, we have to keep in mind that these virtual machines are hosted on a hardware server which can be powered of or restarted at any time. In such situation, the VMs stay powered off,
even when the hosting system is started, and their services are interrupted until a manual start is performed which causes a serious problem of the service continuity.

The purpose of this document is to describe how to make virtual machine starting automatically when the host system starts under vmware workstation 14 installed on Windows 7 Operating System.

Step 1: Share the virtual machine:

• Right click on the virtual machine,
• Manage> Share (follow the steps of the wizard)

Step 2: Enable virtual machine sharing:

• Edit menu> Preferences> Shared VMs> Change settings
• Choose the shared machines directory
• Change the port used by VMware (example: 4443)
• Enable sharing

Step 3: Access remotely to the virtual machine:

• File menu> Connect to Server
• Specify the server address followed by its port (192.168.1.1:4443)
• Specify username & password (with administrator privilege)

Step 4: Enable the automatic start of the machine:

• Right-click on the shared virtual machine
• Manage AutoStart VMs

Step 5: Making the vmware service start automatically:

• Right click on “Computer” icon> Manage
• Services and Applications> Services
• Double click on “vmware workstation server”
• Make the type of automatic startup> then start the service

Useful Links:
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2005585