Monday, December 7, 2009

Renaming a Virtual Machine in VMware Fusion 3

By default, when you create a virtual machine in VMware Fusion 3, the name of the machine in the library consists of the operating system name.  You could add some description in the Notes field to help remind you what the virtual machine is.  How boring!  There is a way to rename the virtual machine, but unfortunately not via the gui.

To rename a virtual machine:
1) Power off (not suspend) the virtual machine.
2) Using Finder, navigate to /Users//Documents/Virtual Machines.  You should see a list of your virtual machines.  Control-Click the virtual machine and the click Show Package Contents.
3) Scroll and find the .vmx file.  There should only be one.  Open the file using TextEdit or some other text editor.
4) Search for displayName.  For example you may see displayName = "Windows XP Professional".  You can change Windows XP Professional to whatever you want.  Save file and exit the text editor.
5) For clarity, I would also rename the Windows XP Professional.vmwarevm file in /Users/Documents/Virtual Machines to something more meaning to match the descriptive name.
6) Back in VMware Fusion, delete the virtual machine from the Virtual Machine Library.
7) Add the renamed virtual machine into the Virtual Machine Library by File > Open.  Navigate to and select renamed vmwarevm file in /Users//Documents/Virtual Machines.  You will be prompted to answer if the virtual machine was move or copied.....answer I copied it.

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