A user came to me today with a problem on his Macbook Pro. He had upgraded VMware Fusion 3.1.2 to 3.1.3. He was getting some errors which I said may well be fixed in the new version. Errors relating to Windows 7 SP1 and graphics drivers.
Anyway, he did the upgrade but when starting the Virtual Machine he could only see a black screen after the initial Windows logo boot. After Googleing the problem he found several answers, including uninstalling and reinstalling VMware Fusion. None of which helped. I suggested rebooting the Macbook Pro just in case but this failed to resolve the issue.
So I tried a few things myself, such as starting Windows in safe mode. Which worked and was able to login. So I came to the conclusion that perhaps it was the graphics drivers that were a problem. As the Fusion upgrade had new VMware Tools (which contain the graphics drivers) it was unlikely they had installed as the user was unable to get into his session.
In the Safe Boot menu (the menu you get when you press F8 while booting into Windows) there was an item called Start in low resolution (640 x 480) or something to that effect. I selected that and was able to boot and login.
At this point I uninstalled the VMware tools using the Programs and Features item in the Control Panel. After this a reboot is required. Once rebooted I selected Install VMware Tools from the Virtual Machine menu in Fusion.
This worked and now the user was able to get back into his VM.
The only difference I could find between my upgarde (that worked 1st time) and his, was that he had suspended his VM before upgrading Fusion where as I had shut mine down completely. So my recomendation is to shut down any running VMs before upgrading Fusion.
If this info helped you, let me know.
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