Sunday, August 8, 2010

Fixing the Certificate Error Problem with VMware Server

I use VMware server for many thing. For example, I own an older version of QuickBooks to bill for consulting projects. I use QuickBooks once a month to create invoices. For me, it is not worth the cost of upgrading to a new version of QuickBooks. I have a VM of Windows XP that runs my copy of QuickBooks.

One problem with VMware Server is Internet Explorer needs the certificate for the VMware Infrastructure Web Access program. Otherwise, you get a certificate error. VMware works fine if you ignore the error but it is easy to fix, once you find out how.

The biggest challenge is finding the certificate. I run Windows 7. The find for Windows is useless. It rarely finds any file I am looking for. A slower, but more reliable solution is the Gnu FindUtils for Windows. You can download a copy here:

http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/findutils.htm

Another useful utility is Gnu Grep for Windows. You can download a copy here:

http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/grep.htm

On Windows 6 (64 bit) the installation packages for FindUtils and Grep install the executables in C:\Program Files (x86)\GnuWin32\bin

The standard Windows command find is useless; but makes it impossible to execute the Gnu find. I rename Gnu's find.exe to gnufind.exe. I then add the location to the environment path variable. That allows running grep or gnufind from any command window.

Gnufind located the certificate use by VMware named rui.cert here C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Server\SSL.

Once you know find the certificate, installing it is simple.

  • Open up Windows Explore and browse to the location of the certificate.
  • Double click on rui.cert

The following dialog will display.

Clicking on the Install Certificate brings up the wizard.

Select Place all certificates in the following store. Then click the Browse button.

Select Trusted Root Certificate Authorities.

Click OK

Click Next

Click Finish.

Close the browser. Now when you open up VMware server the cerficate problem is solved.

1 comment:

Sync said...

I was unable to get the latest Gnu findutils to work on Windows 7-- it first complains about missing libintl3.dll, and when I found that and added it, I then got an "error while loading shared libraries" message with no indication of what libraries it's having problems with. I'd sure like to find a decent version of find for Windows 7-- the old versions I have that execute can't handle directory links (junction points) and end up aborting due to encountering an endless link loop.