How-To Geek
Hack: Turn Off Debug Mode in VMWare Workstation 6 Beta
VMWare Workstation is great. The version 6 beta has even more awesome features… but it’s slower than dirt, because debugging mode is turned on by default.
Thankfully there’s a quick and easy trick to turn off debugging, which will increase the speed a lot.
Here’s what we’re going to do:
- Open an explorer window and browse down to the VMWare install folder. (C:\Program Files\Vmware\VMware Workstation)
- You’ll see two folders, one named bin and another named bin-debug.
- Rename bin-debug to bin-debug-old.
- Make a copy of the bin folder, and name the copied folder bin-debug.
- Enjoy Workstation 6 without debugging.
Here’s a screenshot of what the folder structure now should look like:
(Thanks to Daniel for the screenshot, and my friend Jeff for the tip)
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Comments (6)
Programmer by day, geek by night, The Geek, also known as Lowell Heddings, spends all his free time bringing you fresh geekery on a daily basis. You can follow him on Google+ if you'd like.
- Published 03/22/07




Great tip! Thanks guys.
I think this only works for people running Vista. I am running the beta version in XP and there isn’t a BIN folder.
If your are using 6.5 beta 2, Do a search on your Vmware folder whit the world “debug” or “deb” it will find a file vmware-vmx-debug.exe now shown in the explorer. Rename it or Backup the file to another folder.
You can renameit to vmware-vmx-debug.exe.bak if you want.
Voalaaaaaa! Super VMware Desktop 6.5 Beta 2 a la Me.
Thank you very much Hackinc2000
The same works for the 7.1 Beta
Go to C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\x64 and do the same, but then with the
vmware-vmx-debug.exe file
I can confirm it works on beta 7.1! Thanks GuInHill! VMWare is rolling now!