New Lenovo T520 does NOT WORK with Vmware Workstation!

Major bug here, and I can not find a solution!!!

Got my new T520 with the i7-2820qm, 8GB of memory. I installed a Vertex 3 240GB SSD.

Now down to testing and moving applications from my old laptop. I am a big user of VMware Workstation, newest version 7.1.4

I moved my VM's over to the new machine and I could not logon, no matter what password I put in. So, I changed the original VM to remove the password. Moved the new version over. Now that I am logged in, when I try to type, only numbers show up, and in sequential order, i.e. hit 'a' and the number 1 shows up, hit 'a' again and the number 2 shows up... etc This is NOT a num-lock issue.

If I use OSK, (on screen keyboard), everything works, but that is not acceptable.

I even tried creating a new virtual machine with a CD... same problem. The keyboard is fubar.

I will be calling Lenovo tomorrow, this problem is easily reproducible.

I am running Win 7 64 Professional on the host and XP 32bit as the guest VM.

Has anyone been successful with this configuration???

TIA

 

I don't see why it wouldn't work, I have VMWare Workstation (7.1) on my ThinkPad T420 (i5-2410, 8GB RAM, Intel SSD 120GB + WD 500GB HDD) and it works very well using Windows 7 Home Premium x64.

 

Since it's free, have you considered giving VMware Player a try? That's what I use anyhow for VMs and it works great.

 

Thank you for the prompt response Hearst.

I still don't understand what could be wrong. I installed all the patches and drivers on the T520. Then I installed VMWare.

I have tried uninstalling and re-installing VMware, with no luck.

Thanks again.

 

Roger,

I will try the VMware Player, but I have a valid license for the VMware workstation.

 

Widebody just wondering do you notice any keyboard problems on the host OS or is it just on VMWare only?

 

There does not seem to be any problems with the keyboard on the host. I am typing on it now.

 

I installed 7.1 last night. I will update to 7.1.4 shortly. I created a Windows XP SP3 VM and it is working.

I did see what you described briefly the first time I changed the password on Administrator from blank to a complex password, but I have not seen it since.

This was on my W520 with Windows 7 Ultimate x64.

 

Widebody with your install did you do the VMWare "Easy Install" method? You could try and install the VM manually by configuring the keyboard settings in the OS install to see if it works that way.

 

Hello - I have a T520 with 2720QM, 8GB RAM running VMWare Workstation 7.1.4 flawlessly.

 

I now have 7.1.4 Workstation installed and working. No issues to report on my W520 either.

 

Thanks to everyone for pitching in. This was very disappointing for me.

However, I am making some progress. Here is what I have done.

* in the BIOS, I went to config --> Keyboard/mouse --> numlock
changed from independant (keyboard numlock can be independent of external keyboard numlock) to syncronized

also changed power on numlock to OFF

Rebooted... this did NOT fix the issue

* went to a factory reload state, with the bios settings as above
* installed ONLY lenovo drivers and software NO windows updates
* installed VMware workstation
* copied my XP Pro 32bit VM

When I started the machine for the first time, DIFFERENT behavior, the num-lock icon come on and off a couple times, without me hitting the keyboard at all!

I started to type and in this case it was apparent, it was a num-lock issue.

VMWare is now working! However, I have NOT applied any Windows patches.

I will report back.

This is my first post and I appreciate the quick response from the community here.

 

!@#$$%&^&* crap....

It is/was Comcast Constant Guard Protection Suite!!!!!!!!

I should have known better, sorry to have wasted the bandwidth.

Thanks all

 

You get the "Ooohhh Maaaannnn" for that one.

microsoft.com/security_essentials is good and has a low footprint.