You can use a VNC client to connect to a running virtual machine. Because VNC software is cross-platform, you can use virtual machines running on different types of computers.

Workstation Pro does not need to be running to use VNC to connect to a virtual machine. Only the virtual machine needs to be running, and it can be running in the background.

When you use a VNC client to connect to a virtual machine, some features do not work or are not available.

  • You cannot take or revert to snapshots.
  • You cannot power on, power off, suspend, or resume the virtual machine. You can shut down the guest operating system. Shutting down might power off the virtual machine.
  • You cannot copy and paste text between the host system and the guest operating system.
  • You cannot change virtual machine settings.
  • Remote display does not work well if you are also using the 3D feature.

Prerequisites

  • Configure the virtual machine as a VNC server. See Configure a Virtual Machine as a VNC Server.
  • Determine the machine name or IP address of the host system on which the virtual machine is running and, if required, the VNC port number and password.

Procedure

  1. Install a VNC client on your computer.
    Open-source versions of VNC are freely and publicly available. You can use any VNC client, but not a Java viewer in a browser.
  2. Start the VNC client on your computer.
  3. Verify that the client is set for hextile encoding.
    For example, if you use RealVNC Viewer, select Hextile under the Preferred Encoding option.
  4. Set the VNC client to use all colors.
    For example, if you use RealVNC Viewer, select Full (all available colours) under the Colour Level option.
  5. When prompted for the VNC server name, type the name or IP address and the port number of the host system where the virtual machine is running.
    For example: machine_name:port_number
  6. Type a password if one is required.