You can set or change virtual machine options to run VMware Tools scripts, control user access to the remote console, configure startup behavior, and more. The virtual machine options define a range of virtual machine properties, such as the virtual machine name and the virtual machine behavior with the guest operating system and VMware Tools.

You can view or change virtual machine settings from the vSphere Client. Not all options are available to every virtual machine and some options rarely must change from their defaults.

The host that the virtual machine runs on and the guest operating system must support any configurations that you make.

You can view and change virtual machine settings on the VM Options tab of the Edit Settings wizard.

You can select one of the following options.

Table 1. Virtual Machine Options in the vSphere Client
Options Description
General Options In this section, you can view or change the following settings.
  • Virtual machine name
  • Virtual machine configuration file location
  • Virtual machine working location
  • Guest operating system and OS version

Currently, you can only edit the virtual machine name. The information about the other settings is read only.

To change the operating system for a VM, you have to reinstall the OS - or consider deploying a new VM with your operating system of choice.

VMware Remote Console Options In this section, you can change the locking behavior of a virtual machine and the settings for simultaneous connections.
Encryption In this section, you can change the encryption settings of a virtual machine.
Power Management In this section, you can change virtual machine suspend behavior.
VMware Tools In this section, you can change the behavior of VMware Tools scripts. You can also customize the automatic VMware Tools upgrades, automatically synchronize the guest time of the virtual machine on startup or resume with the host, and periodically synchronize the guest time with the host.
Virtualization Based Security Activate or deactivate VBS for the virtual machine.
Boot Options In this section, you can change the virtual machine boot options. For example, add a delay before booting, force entry into the BIOS or EFI setup screen, or set reboot options.
Advanced In this section, you can change the following advanced virtual machine options.
  • Acceleration and logging settings
  • Debugging and statistics
  • Swap file location
  • Latency sensitivity
Fibre Channel NPIV In this section, you can change the virtual node and port World Wide Names (WWNs).