Interacting with Remote Hosts and Virtual Machines

After you connect to a remote server, the remote host and remote virtual machines appear in the library. If you are using Workstation Pro on a Windows host and the remote server is running vCenter Server, you can toggle between the Hosts and Clusters view and the VMs view. The Hosts and Clusters view displays datacenters, clusters, ESXi hosts, resource pools, vApps, and virtual machines. The VMs view lists datacenter, folders, and virtual machines.

To interact with a remote host, you select it in the library.

The tasks that you can perform on a remote host appear on the tab for the remote host. For example, you might be able to perform the following actions on the remote host.

• Restart
• Shut down
• Enter maintenance mode
• Create virtual machines

To interact with a remote virtual machine, you select it in the library. You interact with remote virtual machines in the same way that you interact with local virtual machines, but some features and devices are not supported. Features that you cannot use with remote virtual machines include Unity mode, shared folders, AutoProtect snapshots, drag-and-drop, and copy and paste.

Your permissions determine the actions that you can perform on remote hosts and remote virtual machines. When a feature is not supported, or when you do not have permission to use it, the associated menu item is unavailable.