I found that without a virtual DVD/CDROM drive as part of the virtual hardware configuration of the VM, the 'Install/Reinstall VMware Tools' get disabled/greyed out (in both Fusion and Workstation Pro). Most Linux distributions include open-vm-tools and some distributions install open-vm-tools by default. Most users will find open-vm-tools provided by Linux distrubutions to meet most of their needs. Note that different distributions update their version of open-vm-tools at different times. Users can update their open-vm-tools from the package repository provided by the Linux distribution. The assumption was that VMware Tools isn’t installed. Following other web searches, in the VMware Workstation startup dialog I selected my virtual machine instance, then Player Manage, but “Install VMware Tools” is grayed out. This seems to confirm that VMware Tools isn’t installed, but it gives me no options to do so. The Install VMware tools option grays out when you start installing it on a guest system with the function already mounted. It also happens when the guest machine doesn’t have a virtual optical drive. VMware tools can even grey out if you select the option during the VMware installation and the log confirms the download. While installing VMware tools, we can see grey out options. Grey out option indicates that the image of the tools is already mounted on the guest VM. So, we should open VM settings to see whether the image of the tools is mounted or not.

Guest operating system Windows 2000 and earlier, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, and later support VMware Tools.

• Power on the virtual machine.
• Verify that the guest operating system is running.
• If you connected the virtual machine’s virtual CD/DVD drive to an ISO image file when you installed the operating system, change the setting so that the virtual CD/DVD drive is configured to autodetect a physical drive.

  The autodetect setting enables the virtual machine's first virtual CD/DVD drive to detect and connect to the VMware Tools ISO file for a VMware Tools installation. This ISO file is detected as a physical CD by your guest operating system. Use the virtual machine settings editor to set the CD/DVD drive to autodetect a physical drive.

• Log in as an administrator unless you are using an older Windows operating system. Any user can install VMware Tools in a Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows ME guest operating system. For operating systems later than these, you must log in as an administrator.
• The AppDefense component is not installed by default. You must perform a custom installation and include that component.

Procedure

1. On the host, from the Workstation Player menu bar, select Player > Manage > Install VMware Tools.
   If an earlier version of VMware Tools is installed, the menu item is Update VMware Tools.
2. If you are installing VMware Tools for the first time, click OK on the Install VMware Tools information page.
   If autorun is enabled for the CD-ROM drive on the guest operating system, the VMware Tools installation wizard starts.
   If autorun is not enabled, to manually launch the wizard, click Start > Run and enter D:setup.exe, where D: is your first virtual CD-ROM drive. Use D:setup64.exe for 64-bit Windows guest operating system.
3. Follow the on-screen prompts.
4. If the New Hardware wizard appears, follow the prompts and accept the defaults.
   Note: If you are installing a beta or RC version of VMware Tools and you see a warning that a package or driver is not signed, click Install Anyway to complete the installation.
5. When prompted, reboot the virtual machine.

What to do next

If a new virtual hardware version is available for the virtual machine, upgrade the virtual hardware.

• Cannot end VMware Tools installation.
• Cannot vMotion virtual machine because of the inability to end the VMware Tools installation.
• Unable to disconnect the CD-ROM device on Linux guest operating system.
• The installation of VMware Tools shows as successful, you cannot unmount tools ISO using GUI or command line from the host or guest.
• In the vmware.log file, located at /vmfs/volumes/virtual_machine_datastore/ virtual_machine_folder/vmware.log file of the affected virtual machine, you see entries similar to:

Install Vmware Tools Greyed Out Windows

Reinstall Vmware Tools Is Greyed Out