VMware vSphere Client

As of 2024, it stills the same as the last report regarding the 'console'. It still doesn't work and no one has ever found a workaround for that.

WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.vsphere" WINEARCH=win32 winetricks -q dotnet35sp1 msxml3 vcrun2005 vcrun2008 vcrun2010
WINEARCH=win32 WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.vsphere" wine ~/VMware-viclient-all-5.5.0-1281650.exe
WINEARCH=win32 WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.vsphere" wine /home/sergio/.vsphere/drive_c/Program\ Files/VMware/Infrastructure/Virtual\ Infrastructure\ Client/Launcher/VpxClient.exe

Steps that I took to get it running, not sure if this is the only way....

Lines prefaced by > are commands to run
Lines prefaced by # are my notes/comments

# Install homebrew, google this if you're not sure. Once homebrew is installed, proceed with following commands.
> brew install wine
> brew install winetricks
# Set wine architecture to Windows 32-bit since the dotnet35sp1 package requires 32-bit Windows. If you already have a 64-bit wine config setup, look into setting up different wine environments, otherwise if you do not need your existing config, then the easiest route is to remove your entire ~/.wine configuration before proceeding.
> export WINEARCH=win32
# Install .NET 3.5 sp1 - this will take quite some time and install some other .NET dependencies as well. Note: I split the winetricks install commands below into separate commands based on advice I found for vSphere Client 6.0 (which seemed to suggest that order of installation matters, specifically with .NET 3.5 sp1), so not sure if absolutely necessary, but it worked for me. Dismiss any dialogs that pop up during the following three commands.
> winetricks -q dotnet35sp1
> winetricks -q msxml3
> winetricks -q vcrun2005 vcrun2008 vcrun2010
# Time to simulate a windows reboot after installing the .NET and other dependencies with a wineboot command.
> wineboot
# Finally issue the install command for the vSphere Windows installer exe. VMware vSphere client 5.5.0 in my downloads directory in my case.
> wine ~/Downloads/VMware-viclient-all-5.5.0-1993072.exe
# Step through the installation dialogs taking the defaults. Once you see an error about installing the hcmon driver, do not click Ok. Instead move your ~/.wine directory to your desktop temporarily.
> mv ~/.wine ~/Desktop/.wine
# Once the one directory is moved, you can now proceed
# Click OK to the hcmon driver dialog, and click Finish on the installer dialog. It will say that the installation failed, but this is ok.
# Now you can move your wine directory back to your user folder
> mv ~/Desktop/.wine ~/.wine
# I issued another wine reboot here. Dismiss any error dialogs.
> wineboot
# Time to launch the vSphere client. Dismiss any warning/error dialogs.
> wine ~/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/VMware/Infrastructure/Virtual Infrastructure Client/Launcher/VpxClient.exe
# The program should be launched now and you can attempt to connect to the server. If you get a pop up about SSL warnings, you can click ignore unless you actually do use custom SSL certs, then I'm not quite sure how to help you.

Hello everyone
When I try to login, it return an error screen, where say:
VSphere client could not connect to .... An unknown connection error occured.(therequest failed because the client could not validate the server's SSL certificate).
Anybody know how I can solve this?

I was unable to get the VMware-viclient installer to get to the file copying stage if any of the dotnet/vcrun's were installed first. As such, I switched the order and installed the VMware-viclient first, and then dotnet/vcrun's. "vjrun20" failed to installed with a dependency conflict but it doesn't appear to be required - unless it's needed for the console, which as everyone knows, doesn't work. Does anyone know exactly why though?

Also, I got ntlm_auth from from the samba3 package via MacPorts.

Steps:

$ mv ~/.wine ~/.wine-hold
$ wine VMware-viclient-all-5.5.0-1618071.exe # click "OK" for the hcmon driver fail but don't click "Finish"

Open up a new terminal window and do these two lines from there.

$ mv ~/.wine ~/.wine-temp # after this, now click "Finish"
$ mv ~/.wine-temp ~/.wine

Install the .NET and VC runtimes. Some Windows exceptions boxes will popup, just dismiss them.

$ winetricks -q msxml3 dotnet35sp1 vcrun2005 vcrun2008 vcrun2010
$ wine ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/VMware/Infrastructure/Virtual\ Infrastructure\ Client/Launcher/VpxClient.exe

Dismissing the Windows' exceptions boxes don't seem to cause any negative impact on the VMware-viclient program.

I just tried this on Mac OS X 10.9.5 with wine 1.6.2 and winetricks 20150206 and followed the instructions posted above. I found the same failure, moved the .wine folders around, restored them, and the program runs for me.

Installation using this method works for me, but connection fails when trying to log on.