It can be a pain when you need to copy and paste text to a VM from your local machine. I assume that the feature was disabled for security reasons. However, you can enable it through the Advanced Configuration Parameters of the VM.

Note: This will only apply in the VMware Remote Console and not in the web console.

If you know where that is then here are the values you need:

isolation.tools.copy.disable FALSE
isolation.tools.paste.disable FALSE

If not then here’s a quick guide:

Firstly, ensure the VM is powered off

 

Click “Actions”

 

Click on “Edit Settings…”

 

Click on “VM Options”

 

Expand “Advanced”

 

Click on “EDIT CONFIGURATION…..”

 

Click on “ADD CONFIGURATION PARAMS”

 

Click here and type “isolation.tools.copy.disable” with the value of “FALSE”

 

Click on “ADD CONFIGURATION PARAMS”

 

Type “isolation.tools.paste.disable” with the value of “FALSE”

 

Click on “OK”

 

When the VM is powered on you should be able to paste into the VM

Note: This will only apply in the VMware Remote Console and not in the web console.

 

Don’t forget to set the values back to “TRUE” when your done.