TechTips - What is the VMWare Server 2.0 Default Password?

Recently I installed VMWare Server 2.0 on my laptop to test out the latest version and see if I liked it. After I got VMWare Server 2.0 installed they had totally changed the method of loading the Virtual Machines. I found that all of the administration is web based and you do it through your web browser. This is fine but when I went to open the VMWare Server Home Page it prompted me for a log on name and password. I thought this was very weird since it hadn't asked me to setup a user name and password. So it left me wondering what is the default user name and password.

I tried all the normal ones, admin with no password, no user name with admin as the password and after that I decided to do a little research. I quickly found that the VMWare creates a new user group for the Virtual Machines. This is where you need to put your user name and password for the administration of the site and so you can log in.

This is a simple task that I will walk you through with just a few quick steps and in no time you will be logging in and working on your Virtual Machines.

The easiest thing to do is to go to right click on the My Computer Icon and choose Manage. Go to the Local User and Groups and expand it. Then click on the folder Groups, in the right hand pane you will find a list of all the groups on your PC and you should see one labeled _VMWARE_ double click this and it will open a new window. In this window you will see a list of users with rights to this group (it's probably empty), this group is the one that will allow users listed in here to log in to the web interface of the VMWare admin page. You need to add your user account in this group.

To do that you simple have to click the Add button at the bottom left of this window. Now if you are on a domain you will want to set the "From this location" to your local PC but if you aren't you shouldn't have to make any changes. Simply type the user name you want to add to this group and then click OK. Once you have added the user to the group go back to the VMWare web interface and you should be able to use the user name and password for the account you added to the _VMWARE_ group.

Viola you are now able to log in to the VMWARE interface and setup your Virtual Machines. Hope this guide helps you out with logging into the VMWare Server 2.0 interface.