You can enable or disable virtual machine sharing and remote access, change the HTTPS port that VMware Workstation Server uses on the host system, and change the shared virtual machines directory.

When you enable virtual machine sharing and remote access, Workstation Pro starts VMware Workstation Server and configures the service to start with the host system.

When you disable virtual machine sharing and remote access, Workstation Pro disables virtual machine sharing and stops VMware Workstation Server. You cannot create shared virtual machines and remote users cannot connect to the host system.

You must disable virtual machine sharing and remote access before you can change the HTTPS port that VMware Workstation Server uses.

Prerequisites

  • On a Linux host, verify that you have root access.
  • On a Windows host, verify that you have administrative privileges.
  • If you plan to change the shared virtual machines directory, stop sharing virtual machines on the host system. You cannot change the shared virtual machines directory if there are shared virtual machines on the host system. See Stop Sharing a Virtual Machine.

Procedure

  1. Select Edit > Preferences > Shared VMs.
  2. To enable or disable virtual machine sharing and remote access, click Enable Sharing or Disable Sharing (Windows host), or select or deselect Enable virtual machine sharing and remote access (Linux host).
  3. To change the HTTPS port that VMware Workstation Server uses on the host system, select a different port from the drop-down menu.
    Note: If you change the port to a non-default value, remote users must specify the port number when they connect to the host system, for example, host: port.
  4. To change the shared virtual machines directory, type or browse to the location of the new shared virtual machines directory (Windows host), or type the new directory in the text box and click Apply (Linux host).
  5. Click OK to save your changes.