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How and Why to Enable Administrative Lockout in VMware Workstation

By Codrut Nistor

Posted in How-to, Software, Virtualization-2

Since VMware workstation is considered as most efficient application as far as virtualization techniques are concerned it is used in many production environments. In order to make the application even more secure and convenient for the administrators VMware workstation allows several security controls that can be enabled in order to protect virtual machines from getting misused or stolen. Administrative Lockout is yet another security feature offered by VMware workstation that can be enabled and configured to ensure that the application and virtual machines are managed only by authorized persons of the organizations. With the help of this feature administrators can prevent any unauthorized person from: a) creating virtual machines in VMware workstation b) edit settings for virtual machines and/or c) manage virtual network settings. When this feature is enabled any person who wants to modify any of the above settings needs to provide the predefined password. As an administrator you can enable Administrative Lockout feature in VMware workstation by following the steps given below:

  1. Open VMware workstation console window and from the Edit menu go to Preferences.

  2. On Preferences box go to Lockout tab and check Enabled checkbox.

  3. From now enabled 3 other checkboxes check the appropriate ones.

  4. In Password and Confirm Password fields type and re-type the desired passwords respectively.

  5. Finally click on Ok button to make the changes persistent.