The tools are installed, the success message appeared - and Ubuntu is still sitting in a postage stamp in the middle of your monitor, with 800 by 600 as the only respectable option. This is the most common VMware Tools complaint there is, and it almost always yields to a short ladder of checks. Work them in order; stop at the rung that frees the screen.
A stuck resolution after installing VMware Tools feels like the install failed. Usually it did not - one link in the chain between the tools and your login session is missing: the session agent has not started yet, the desktop package is absent, VMware's fit setting is off, or the display session type is interfering. Each cause has a distinct fix, and they are cheap to test in order. Climb the ladder from the top.
Not a log out, not a suspend - a full restart of the virtual machine, then log in and give it ten seconds. Auto-resize is delivered by an agent that runs inside your graphical login session, and a session started before the install does not magically gain it. A surprising share of stuck screens free themselves at this rung alone, which is why it goes first despite sounding too simple. If the screen is still small after a genuine reboot and login, climb on.
Resize lives in open-vm-tools-desktop, not in the base package. If this VM was set up from a server-flavoured tutorial, it may only have the engine. Check with dpkg -l | grep open-vm: one package listed means the desktop layer is missing. Install it - sudo apt install open-vm-tools-desktop -y - reboot once more, and test. This is the single most common root cause behind "tools installed, resolution stuck", and it is a two-minute fix.
Sometimes the guest is ready and the host is not being asked. In VMware Workstation, open the View menu: Autofit Guest should be enabled, and Fit Guest Now forces an immediate resize to the current window. Going full screen with the toolbar button (or Ctrl + Alt + Enter) is the other trigger - notice how in the video the desktop fills the screen the moment the display refreshes in full screen mode. If the menu items are greyed out, VMware believes the tools are absent, which sends you back to rung two and the verification checks.
Ubuntu's default login session on recent versions is Wayland. Auto-resize generally works there on current releases, but its companion features - drag and drop especially - are known to misbehave under Wayland in VMware guests. If resize works but drag and drop refuses, or behaviour is erratic, run the honest experiment: log out, click the gear icon on the login screen, choose Ubuntu on Xorg, and log in again. If everything works under Xorg, you have found your culprit and your workaround in one step - nothing about your install was wrong.
While you sort the chain out, you do not have to squint. Open Settings, Displays in Ubuntu and pick the largest sensible resolution offered; even a fixed 1920 by 1080 beats 800 by 600. If the list itself is capped at tiny sizes, check the VM's display settings on the host side while it is powered off - a very low video memory allocation can cap what the guest may offer, and raising it (and enabling 3D acceleration for desktop use) lifts the ceiling. Manual settings are a crutch, not the cure - but a usable crutch beats a tiny screen.
The video shows the end state you are aiming for - install, refresh, and a desktop that fills the whole window. Watch it to see the working result.
▶️ Watch Full VideoThat pattern means the resize happens late or the session agent is not starting with your login. Confirm the desktop package is installed, make sure the open-vm-tools service is enabled at boot with systemctl status open-vm-tools, and prefer a full shutdown and cold start over VMware's suspend, which restores the old session state - tiny screen included.
A short list with a low ceiling usually means the guest is running on a basic fallback display driver - the tools' display integration is not active - or the VM's video memory on the host side is set very low. Work rungs two and five together: desktop package confirmed inside the guest, video memory raised in the VM settings while powered off. When the tools' driver takes over, the fixed list is replaced by window-following behaviour entirely.
It is the same family. VMware hands the guest the size of the window it is actually in, so a VM dragged between monitors of different sizes should re-fit on each move - give it a second, or nudge it with View, Fit Guest Now. If it never re-fits on the second screen, treat it as rung one and three combined: fresh reboot, Autofit Guest enabled, and the per-monitor layout checked in Ubuntu's own display settings.