Fix A Problem: Cannot Run BlackBerry PlayBook Simulator on VMWare Player Due to "Insufficient Permissions"

The BlackBerry PlayBook Simulator is a Virtual Machine image file that can run under VMWare Player.

The BlackBerry PlayBook Simulator is included with the BlackBerry Tablet OS SDK for Adobe AIR and is located in "C:\Program Files\Research In Motion\blackberry-tablet-sdk-1.1.0\BlackBerryPlayBookSimulator-1.0.6".

However if you just run VMWare Player and open the .vmx file then "Play" the VM image, you'll get an error message like this:

Error while powering on: Unable to open file "C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Flash Builder Burrito\sdks\blackberry-tablet-sdk-1.0.1\BlackBerryPlayBookSimulator-1.0.1\BlackBerryPlayBookSimulator.vmdk": Insufficient permission to access file.

VMWare is also unable to change any Virtual Machine settings.

Solution:

To solve this problem, either:

• Run VMWare Player as administrator. Right-click VMWare Player and choose "Run as administrator".
  This will elevate its privileges, and allow VMWare Player to access everything in your computer.
• Move out the BlackBerry PlayBook Simulator folder to your user home folder, and make sure to open the permissions to read/write.

Now... Enjoy your BlackBerry PlayBook development!

Learn more about tablet apps development with Adobe Flash/AIR, get Professional Flash Mobile Development: Creating Android and iPhone Applications.

How to "Downgrade" to Adobe Flex SDK 4.1 (AIR 2.0) in Flash Builder 4.5

Intel AppUp Application Store does not yet accept Adobe AIR 2.6 / Flex 4.5 desktop applications (at least this is true as of 8 August 2011) because the Adobe InMarket SDK supports only up to AIR Runtime 2.5.

Here's how to "downgrade" the Adobe AIR SDK (actually, install an older version of Flex/AIR SDK) in Adobe Flash Builder 4.5:

1. Download Adobe Flex SDK here. Choose Adobe Flex SDK 4.1.
2. Extract the downloaded SDK somewhere in your User home folder.
3. In Flash Builder, click Window menu > Preferences.
   Navigate to Flash Builder > Installed Flex SDKs.
4. Click Add... button then locate your old Flex SDK.

Now you need to configure your project to use the older Flex SDK.
Right-click your Flex project, navigate to Flex Compiler.
Then select the older Adobe Flex SDK version (Flex 4.1).

Now your AIR application should run with the InMarket SDK and can be successfully published to Intel AppUp application distribution channel.

To learn more on Adobe Flash/Flex/AIR applications development, get Flex 4 Cookbook.

How to Publish Adobe AIR 2.6 Application Created by Flash Builder 4.5 to Intel AppUp

While Intel AppUp now supports (in beta) publishing Adobe AIR Applications to Intel AppUp store, the latest version supported is AIR 2.5 / Flex 4.1.

Flash Builder 4.5 bundles Flex 4.5 / Adobe AIR 2.6 and thus the applications cannot be used with Intel AppUp as of this moment with the following error:

Error: Unsupported AIR namespace in the application descriptor (-app.xml) file. Only 1.5.3, 2.0 and 2.5 namespaces are supported in this version of licensing SDK.
at com.adobe.licensing.controllers::LicenseProvider()[/home/esbuilder/Melrose_-_1.0.1/1.0.1.153/fps/melrose/branches/melrose_1.0.1/components/licensing/ant-temp/com/adobe/licensing/controllers/LicenseProvider.as:320]
at ProviderLoader/fileIOErrorHandler()[/home/esbuilder/Melrose_-_1.0.1/1.0.1.153/fps/melrose/branches/melrose_1.0.1/components/licensing/ant-temp/com/adobe/licensing/ProviderLoader.as:61]

To resolve this at this time you have to download the very old Adobe Flex SDK 4.1 here: http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Downloads

Then use that Flex SDK in Flash Builder to build your Adobe AIR Application.

Now your application can be submitted to Intel AppUp successfully.

Hopefully Intel / Adobe will resolve this situation quickly and support AIR 2.6 / AIR 2.7 soon.

Good luck!

To learn more on Adobe Flash/Flex/AIR applications development, get Flex 4 Cookbook.

References:

1. http://appdeveloper.intel.com/en-us/forums/integrate-inmarket-sdk
2. http://appdeveloper.intel.com/en-us/forums/error-unsupported-air-namespace-application-descriptor-appxml-file-only-153-20-and-25-namespa
3. http://appdeveloper.intel.com/en-us/article/adobe-air-packaging-guide-atom-developer-program-submissions