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I have already asked a similar question on StackOverflow, but so far nobody has bitten. Maybe a VMware expert can help me out.

I am currently writing an application to manage our VMs which have three generations:

  1. Gold is the "tools-only" VM,
  2. Silver is the code branch specific VM,
  3. Bronze is a user-specific copy of Silver.

The VMs are running on individual users' machines in VMware Workstation.

So far, I have been using the VIX API 1.11 to do this, and I have pulled out useful information such as the VM name (which appears as "Virtual machine name" under Settings), and snapshot data to give a nice summary of the types of machines that exist on a users' machine and on a designated download area on our network.

Unfortunately, I have been finding great difficulty as how to change "property" values. The VIX API gives a number of GetProperty type methods, and only one SetProperty method, which I now realise is only there to provide a more flexible way to provide extended properties for specific methods. I have also looked at the vmrun.exe utility, and there is no getProperty or setProperty command at all.

Does anybody know how I can get greater control over VMs? I really don't want to hack the VMX files or hack VMware Workstation's dialogue boxes!

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This question, im my opinion, does indeed belong to stackoverflow, since it's a programming question. Here, you'll more likely to get answers involving command-line tools or Perl. And I'm not sure this is what you seek...what language are you programming in anyway? – Roman Nov 29 '11 at 14:30
I am trying to be open-minded about this project. It is possible that I am replicating an existing tool. Or there might be a command-line tool that I could run at an appropriate point. I am knowledgeable about programming, not about VMware :-) – Mark Bertenshaw Nov 29 '11 at 14:43
Ok - I have to admit that I was surprised that the VMX files are simple text config files. This changes things - I feel reasonably confident that I could hack the file outside VMware Workstation. Still, I would prefer to use a more standard mechanism, where possible. – Mark Bertenshaw Nov 29 '11 at 15:07
Just be careful such hacks. – Roman Nov 29 '11 at 15:27
Definitely. I am wary of doing such things. Particularly since the config files aren't documented, and VMware could change the format any time. Which is why I want a standard mechanism. – Mark Bertenshaw Nov 29 '11 at 17:31
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