I'm embarrassed to admit my mistakes, but I need help. First mistake was to upgrade my wife's iMac from Mac OSX 10.6.8 to 10.8.5 before upgrading her VMware 3.1.3 to 6.0.2. This left her VMware icon with a circle and slash sign over the logo indicating incompatibility with the new OS. The second mistake was to proceed to attempt to upgrade VMware late in the evening when I was very tired, but I just had to know if it would work with the disabled 3.1.3. I upgraded VMware to 6.0.2 and my fuzzy memory tells me that the upgrade from 6.0.2 was accomplished AND the app and data residing on VMware 3.1.3 were included in the VMware upgrade and all was well, including the installation of Windows 7 Ultimate. Then a third mistake occurred. I noticed that there were some things that didn't look right to me, so I deleted one item having to do with the Virtual Machine. That produced a mess and VMware wouldn't function. I still had the 6.0.2 dmg on my mac desktop, so I deleted the wounded Virtual Machine and reinstalled the VMware upgrade. However, this time the 3.1.3 apps and data were not included in the final result of the second upgrade. I have fiddled with it for a few hours without success. It has dawned on me that VMware may give you just one shot to succeed. I've tried to reach a human on their web site, but it isn't easy. Does anyone know if this one shot theory is true? In the alternative, is there a way for me to do the upgrade on a third try using the same dmg that also will include the apps and data from version 3.1.3?

It's not a one-shot deal, not at all. VMware is not all that different from any other app.

It sounds like either VMware can't find your virtual hard disk file, or you deleted your virtual hard disk file.

If you deleted it, the only way to get it back is to restore it from your backups. (You do have backups, right?)

If VMware just can't find it, run VMware, click the Window menu, and choose Virtual Machine Library. Click Settings, Add, Existing Hard Disk, Add Device. A file open box will appear. Open the hard disk file and volia!

Thank you for the instructions. I followed them carefully. I obtained a copy of the 3.1.3 version of VMware from Time Machine and "installed" it on Mountain Lion. It had the circle with a slash showing it wouldn't work. I then installed VMware 6.0.2. I had to shut down the virtual machine to be able to follow your instructions, but I did get to the place where I had VMware 6.0.2 open and a window next to it showing the apps and files on the 3.1.3 version. However, I could not move the apps and files from the 3.1.3 window to the 6.0.2 window. I had no problem with VMware on my own Mac Pro because I had upgraded VMware to version 4.x before doing the upgrade to Mountain Lion, but my wife was happy to keep 3.1.3 since she was still using Snow Leopard. I just didn't realize that I would kill VMware 3.1.3 by upgrading to Mountain Lion without first upgrading VMware to 4.x.

I've thought about asking the Parallels people if they have a way of dealing with this problem. They claim ease of use of their product and they certainly have a large share of the market. I didn't go with them originally because they were a small company and VMware seemed more substantial, but I've never liked VMware's way of doing things.

The other option is to reinstall my wife's Snow Leopard and upgrade VMware to 4.x and then go back to Mountain Lion and further upgrade VMware to 6.0.2. She claims that she hasn't done a lot on Mountain Lion yet, so that may work, but it's a big pain.

Thanks for the assist.

My wife & I have decided to reinstall Snow Leopard from our DVD and then upgrade VMware to 4.x and then "upgrade" back to Mountain Lion and reinstall VMware 6.0.2. Other than being a pain in the neck, is there any known problem doing this? In theory it solves the problem.

That does sound like your best solution to me.....I don't really see a down side other than the time that you will invest (not spend) on the update.

I appreciate your assist. Since this is a big deal to me, I hope you won't mind if I ask whether you or someone else has actually used their Snow Leopard disk to downgrade Mt.Lion to Snow Leopard. Also, will it affect Time Machine's content?

When I initially updated my Mac to Snow Leopard using my Snow Leopard install DVD, I was able to make the update without having to wipe the partition clean. As I recall, that was a first. I upgraded from 10.5 to 10.6. This time, I'm sort of in reverse by downgrading from 10.8 to 10.6. Does that also preserve the folders and files while changing the operating system?

While I have never, personally, downgraded from one OS to another, my understanding is that it cannot be done safely (if at all). AFAIK, you'll have to wipe the drive and install Snow Leopard without being able to run the equivalent of Archive and Install. Unless someone else knows a workaround, you'll have to reinstall everything from scratch. Back up all your irreplaceable files first, of course, so you can copy them to the Snowy installation.

In any event, don't attempt anything until someone else chimes in. You may avoid a disaster by waiting a bit.

Parallels can use a VMware virtual machine. But you should not need to "copy" things from the old VMware to the new VMware. You're just telling the new version where the VMware virtual hard disk file is, that's all.

Seems like it might be simpler to restore your wife's iMac to its pre-10.8 state from her Time Machine backup, then perform the various upgrades you mentioned, then (if necessary) add back in any more recent documents and data from the same Time Machine backup.

Revert rather than downgrade, in other words.

DK, we're on the same wavelength. I've drafted a plan that I'll download now, but I opened another Safari widow to see if there were any comments before sending my thoughts. I'll go back to the other window and send it.

My "tome" must have been too large. I sent it, but it hasn't shown up on the forum. I'll divide it and send two messages.

I may have had an ahah, but I want to check it out with this group first.
See entry number #27232 - 11/01/13 01:27 PM in a previous thread named "Re: I've had it with Mavericks. How do I revert?" where I described how I got rid of Mavericks and reinstalled Mountain Lion and its files. There, I was dealing with two systems that had no installation DVDs. Until now, I've blocked that successful adventure out of my mind because i've been dead set on using the Snow Leopard installation disk. That may have been self-defeating.

I currently have a complete backup of Snow Leopard on an external hard drive that was made just before upgrading my wife's computer to Mountain Lion. Before the upgrade, I turned off the external drive so as not to clutter Time Machine with garbage as we installed Mountain Lion. This was done because the iMac was acting very weirdly with strange visual aberrations on the screen. We've now discovered that a wireless telephone sitting next to the iMac was causing the problems. Things cleared up when my wife moved the phone to another room. Before that discovery, we upgraded her iMac to Mountain Lion in case Snow Leopard was having a problem with some new software.

Here's what I could do now that we know the problem was the phone. I could turn on the external hard drive and do a complete backup of the Mountain Lion setup that we have created and carefully note the time and date of the backup so I can identify the proper Time Machine version later on. Then, I could install Snow Leopard using the same plan that was followed when I downgraded from Mavericks. Then, we could open the VMware on Snow Leopard and upgrade it at least to version 4.x or higher and do another backup to Time Machine so we have an upgraded version of VMware on the iMac. Then, my wife can decide whether to stay with Snow Leopard or go back to Mountain Lion using the same procedure I used to downgrade Mavericks. If we go to Mountain Lion, we can then go to Time Machine and fetch the upgraded VMware file from the Snow Leopard that should still be on Time Machine. Then, we can use the VMware 6.0.2dmg that we've already purchased for her machine and all will be well. I wouldn't be so confident of this if I hadn't already successfully used it to downgrade from Mavericks to Mountain Lion on my Mac Pro. I'm going to let this simmer for a little while before doing it, so your comments would be most gratefully received.

I may have been using "downgrade" interchangeably with "restore." I have "restored" 10.6.8 to her iMac and it went just as smoothly as it did when I "downgraded" from Mavericks to Mountain Lion. Anyway, what you said in your last post on this thread is exactly what I did both times.

I have now opened VMware 3.1.3 on her Snow Leopard and have clicked "Check for updates." The update offered was 3.1.4. I gave it the go-ahead and it has been grinding along for nearly an hour. I'm concerned that it may be stuck for some unknown reason, but I'm afraid to discontinue it in case it's trying to update all the way to 5.x which, as I understand it, is as high as it can go with Snow Leopard. We have already purchased update 6.0.2 for the iMac, but that will have to wait until she decides to go with Mountain Lion.

Does anyone have a feeling for how long to let this thing thrash before discontinuing it and trying again?

BAD NEWS. A VMware customer service person told me that VMware now requires persons using version 3.1.3 to purchase the entire application at full price instead of the price of an upgrade. With that unhappy experience in mind, my wife intends to go to Parallels when she gets around to it. Right now, it is more important for her to finish her book using Snow Leopard which is the Mac environment with which she is most familiar. Then, we'll worry about her PC side and the extensive family history work that she has done using PC applications.

I regret bothering you with this problem. After all of the struggle, it is now my opinion that this was not really a technical problem. I will leave it at that.

For what it's worth, I abandoned VMware for Parallels, and was able to migrate my VMware virtual machines to Parallels virtual machines with no difficulty. Make sure you have plenty of free disk space, though!