All current VMware class materials are delivered via VitalSource Bookshelf. It's pretty good for digital book software (still doesn't go much beyond what you can do with a paper book, but that is another article). If, like me, you run VitalSource on a virtual machine, you may have noticed after a recent upgrade you can't open your books anymore, you just get a grey screen.
After doing some digging, I discovered this is because the new version of the software requires DirectX 10 (yes, for a book).
https://support.vitalsource.com/hc/en-us/sections/200390856-Troubleshooting
The default VMware SVGA driver doesn't support DirectX 10, however the solution is pretty simple, just enable 3D Graphics.
