Lately, I have been running VMware Workstation 5 from the command line. After you have Workstation 5 installed, you can open a command prompt and browse to the VMware Workstation folder and type vmrun to get a list of commands.

Remember to add the VMware Workstation directory to the system path. Simply browse to Control Panel | System | Advanced | Environment Variables | System variables | Path to VM. The default working path is c:\program files\vmware\vmware workstation.

Let’s begin by starting a virtual machine from the command line. If I run a vmrun list, I should get back 0 virtual machines because I have none running.

To start a virtual machine, type vmrun start c:\vm\webuta\winnetenterprise.vmx.

Now type  vmrun list and you should get back the number of vm’s currently running.

Once you are done with your vm or have a need to suspend, type

vmrun stop c:\vm\webuta\winnetenterprise.vmx

or

vmrun suspend  c:\vm\webuta\winnetenterprise.vmx.

You can even play around with these settings and create batch files that start your virtual machines with a single click. I have several batch files on my desktop that I use to kick off vm’s and suspend vm’s. It comes in very handy.

Note: I have created a gallery if you would like to see all the screenshots in one place.