Cannot Change Resolution Ubuntu 7.10 (guest on VMware)
February 2, 2008 — Giannella
Diagnosis:
a. You load up Ubuntu 7.10 / 7.04 Live CD as a Guest OS on VMware Server 1.0.4 (Windows Platform) — Screen resolution too large/too small — won’t change.
b. You take a shot at installing Ubuntu 7.10 / 7.04 as a fixed Guest OS on VMware Server 1.0.4 (Windows Platform) — surprisingly enough — You try to change the Ubuntu’s Screen Resolution but again the action is simply ignored.
Notes:
This mostly happens to newly intstalled VMware server installations where VMware Tools has not been installed yet. Installing VMware Tools in your guest operating systems will help maximize performance, provide mouse synchronization and copy & paste functionality. The feature we will be using is “Auto-fit Guest”.
Solution:
Install VMware Tools on your Ubuntu by opening VMware host -> VM -> “Install VMware Tools…”.
A detailed guide on how to install it via Terminal is found here:
http://www.howtoforge.com/vmware_tools_on_linux
Guest operating systems supported: Ubuntu 7.04, Fedora 7, PCLinuxOS 2007 and Debian Etch.
This article also shows a way of making VMware Tools start automatically when you start a guest operating system.
And that’s it basically 
