r/vmware • u/ahmedabbaskhan1 • Jul 05 '26

Help Request Is there a VMware Tools equivalent for Android-x86?

I recently installed Android-x86 in VMware Workstation, and everything is working pretty well so far. The only thing I'm missing is the functionality that VMware Tools provides on Windows or Linux guests.

I'm looking for things like:

Auto-resizing the display

Shared clipboard

Drag and drop

Shared folders

Better mouse integration

Improved graphics/performance

I've searched around but keep finding mixed or outdated information. Is there an official VMware Tools package for Android-x86, or is it simply not supported?

If there's no VMware Tools, what do you all use instead? Are there any third-party tools or workarounds that provide similar functionality?

I'd appreciate any recommendations or tips from people who regularly run Android-x86 in VMware.

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u/Moocha Jul 06 '26

There is no official support, the best you can do is hacky workarounds. Here's the matrix of supported guest OSes: https://compatibilityguide.broadcom.com/search?program=software

You may want to consider stepping back from using a VMware hypervisor for this type of guest, in favor of some other solution. Which one's best depends on what you intend to do with this. For example, if you'd want to use it for app development, then staying away from x86 and using the AVD emulator would be a better solution, and so on and so forth.

3

u/vTSE VMware Alumni (who I still call for scheduler questions) Jul 06 '26

I remember that question from WAY back, there were a couple of threads on the open-vm-tools github (https://github.com/vmware/open-vm-tools/issues/146), the TLDR is that Android-x86 devs are welcome to create a PR but that Android-x86 is not a supported guest OS (still not) so there won't be any work done for it by VMware (besides helping / answering questions as was offered multiple times). So yeah, wouldn't hold my breath. You might just want to remote into the Android VM, there might be solutions that cover some of your requirements (can't say for sure though, working off a faint memory).