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Uninstalling and manually installing VMware Tools in VMware Fusion (1014522)

Symptoms

  • After upgrading VMware Fusion, the VMware Tools installer does not launch automatically when Windows boots
  • VMware Tools installer fails to launch even after you click Install VMware Tools in the Virtual Machine menu
  • VMware Tools does not install correctly
  • You see the error:

    VMware Tools is out of date.

Resolution

On occasion, you may have to uninstall and reinstall VMware Tools.

Uninstalling VMware Tools

To uninstall VMware Tools in Windows XP:

  1. Click Start > Control Panel.
  2. Open Add/Remove Programs.
  3. From the list of installed software, select VMware Tools.
  4. Click Remove.
  5. When prompted, click Yes to restart Windows.
  6. Once restarted, open My Computer and navigate to C:\Program Files and remove the VMware folder if it exists.

To uninstall VMware Tools in Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8:

  1. Click Start > Control Panel.
  2. Click Programs and Features.
  3. From the list of installed software, select VMware Tools.
  4. Click Uninstall.
  5. When prompted, click Yes to restart Windows.
To uninstall VMware Tools in a Linux guest operating system:
  1. Open a terminal window.
  2. Switch to the root user, by running this command:

    su - root

  3. Run the VMware tools uninstaller script:

    /usr/bin/vmware-uninstall-tools.pl

  4. Follow the onscreen instructions to complete the uninstall.
  5. Reboot the virtual machine.

For information on manually uninstalling VMware Tools registry entries in Windows, see  Unable to upgrade existing VMware Tools (1001354)

For information on uninstalling VMware Tools on a Mac OS guest, see Manually uninstalling VMware Tools in a Mac OS guest (2005390).

Installing VMware Tools

Windows

For instructions to manually install VMware Tools in a Windows guest, see Installing VMware Tools in a Fusion virtual machine running Windows (1003417).

Linux

For instructions to manually install VMware Tools in a Linux guest, see one of these articles, depending on your distribution:

Mac OS

For instructions on manually installing VMware Tools in a Mac OS guest, see Installing VMware Tools in a Mac OS Guest (1032440).

Note: If your issue persists even after uninstalling VMware Tools, see Cleaning up after an incomplete uninstallation on a Windows host (1308).

Additional Information

For related information, see:

Tags

uninstall-vmware-tools install-vmware-tools fault/crash

See Also

Update History

03/31/2010 - Added link to "1606 Error" in "Additional Info"; added explanation that these are possibly-related issues. 05/19/2010 - Updated the manual install instructions; Added links to Linux instructions. 07/13/2010 - Updated links in Installing section. 10/15/2010 - Updated symptoms, added error message. 12/23/2010 - Added link to a Mac OS guest article. 08/23/2012 - Added Fusion 5.x to Products.

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