Has anyone else noticed how VMware will send you email after email, trying to get you to buy their product (or purchase an upgrade for a version of their product that you already own), and then when you try to get it installed or configured or running, they treat you like some kind of second-class citizen just because your purchase comes with only 30-day "complimentary" support? And I'm not talking about someone that needs support after the initial 30 days (post purchase) has expired. I'm talking about during the 30 days, such as immediately after the purchase takes place.
I'm attempting to install VMware Workstation for the very first time on a Linux platform (all my previous installs were done on Windows platforms). The version of VMware is Workstation 9.0.2. The version of Linux is RHEL Workstation 6.4 (32 bit). As soon as I tried to run the installer, I immediately got two errors:
Gtk-Message: Failed to load module "pk-gtk-module": libpk-gtk-module.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Gtk-Message: Failed to load module "canberra-gtk-module": libcanberra-gtk-module.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Performing a "find" on the system verified that these files do exist on my system, in directory /usr/lib/gtk-2.0/modules, so the files are there. Now, after I got those errors, the installer's GUI did open up....but I cancelled on it because of concern that it might not run properly or install the software properly.
Instead, I placed a support ticket. When I got a response, I got a response from some guy out of an asian call center (India or Pakistan or Afghanistan) telling me that I needed to run vmware-config.pl. Can you believe that? First, according to one of vmware's own knowledgebase documents, starting with workstation 6.5 and then all later versions, vmware-config.pl is no longer used. Secondly, vmware-config.pl would only be on my system, in order to run it, after the initial installation has completed. Since the installer wouldn't even run without generating those errors, I had no copy of vmware-config.pl in my /usr/bin in the first place to even run. I pointed this out to the guy and what response did I get back? "Oh, well, you just have complimentary support and we don't support your OS so you should try installing vmware on some other OS". What? You don't support Red Hat Enterprise Linux? Give me an effin' break! And you don't think I deserve support because I purchased VMware Workstation and only have 30 days "complimentary support." This is the problem you have when dealing with so-called "support people" working out of foreign call centers who are just following some kind of tech support problem resolution checklist rather than dealing with people who know the product inside and out....and thus know how VMware Workstation Installer attempts to locate those files and thus have a good idea of why the installer can't find them, and what to do to fix the problem. And this is also what happens when a manufacturer only cares about getting your money and doesn't care one iota if you have problems with their product.....just so long as they have your money. It makes me so mad that I want to recommend to my organization that we yank out all of our VMware products and go with an alternate product where the manufacturer is more customer-friendly.
If there are any other people on this forum that might know how to resolve the gtk errors I'm getting, I'd appreciate any info you can provide.