VMWare run/stop VM from command line

Hi everyone,

so here are two basic commands you can wrap in functions or anything else to run/stop VM of VMWare Workstation.

Important note, all commands are for Windows. They should work for other systems I guess with minimal or no changes.

To start a VM use this command

vmrun -T ws start "C:\vms\workstation.vmx" nogui

nogui option in this case forces the vmrun NOT to open the GUI window. workstation.vmx is a file, usually is the same as your VM name.

To stop a VM

There is nothing special. Just stop instead of start.

vmrun -T ws stop "C:\vms\workstation.vmx"

You can check out the output of vmrun command to see a bit more options to manage VMs.

Also take a look at my other, posts related to pretty the same subject but for VirtualBox.