Unable to upgrade existing VMware Tools
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Unable to upgrade existing VMware Tools

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Article ID: 341289

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Updated On:

Products

VMware VMware Desktop Hypervisor VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

  • You are unable to upgrade the existing installation of VMware Tools because the previous installation fails to be removed.
  • The uninstall feature of VMware Tools fails to complete.
  • You cannot uninstall VMware Tools.
  • You need to remove VMware Tools.
  • You need to manually uninstall VMware Tools.


Resolution

Cause

The cause of this issue is currently unknown and is under investigation. To help identify the cause, report this issue to VMware Support and provide answers to the following questions:
  • What version of the tools are you upgrading from?
  • What version of the tools are you upgrading to?
  • What method is being used to upgrade the tools?

To determine the previous versions of the VMware Tools that were installed on your system, open the Microsoft Windows event viewer and search for Event Source of MsiInstaller and Event ID of 1034. For more information on viewing events, see the Microsoft TechNet article Filter Displayed Events.

Workaround

Note: This procedure modifies the Windows registry. Before making any registry modifications, ensure that you have a current and valid backup of the registry and the virtual machine. For more information on backing up and restoring the registry, see the Microsoft Knowledge Base article 136393 .

Try uninstalling the VMware tools using kb :https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2010137 if not helpful then try below steps. 

To manually remove VMware Tools 

Windows XP virtual machines

  1. Start the virtual machine and log in as the Administrator.
  2. Open the Windows Registry editor. Click Start > Run, type regedit, and press Enter .
  3. Take a full backup of the registry prior to editing it. Do not skip this step
  4. Delete these registry keys if they exist:
     
    • HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Features\C2A6F2EFE6910124C940B2B12CF170FE
    • HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Products\C2A6F2EFE6910124C940B2B12CF170FE
    • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Installer\Features\C2A6F2EFE6910124C940B2B12CF170FE
    • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Installer\Products\C2A6F2EFE6910124C940B2B12CF170FE
    • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\C2A6F2EFE6910124C940B2B12CF170FE
    • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{FE2F6A2C-196E-4210-9C04-2B1BC21F07EF}
    • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\VMware, Inc.
Note: If the key is not present in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\, verify the subfolders present in the particular registry folder.
 

Windows 2003 virtual machines

  1. Start the virtual machine and log in as the Administrator.
  2. Open the Windows Registry editor. Click Start > Run, type regedit, and press Enter .
  3. Take a full backup of the registry prior to editing it. Do not skip this step
  4. Delete these registry keys if they exist:
    • HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Features\005014B32081E884E91FB41199E24004
    • HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Products\005014B32081E884E91FB41199E24004
    • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Installer\Features\005014B32081E884E91FB41199E24004
    • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Installer\Products\005014B32081E884E91FB41199E24004
    • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Components\0B150AC107B12D11A9DD0006794C4E25
    • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{3B410500-1802-488E-9EF1-4B11992E0440}
    • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\VMware, Inc.
       
  5. Some services must be removed manually from the registry. Delete these as well if they exist:
     
    • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\VMTools
    • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\VMUpgradeHelper
    • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\VMware Physical Disk Helper Service
    • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\vmvss


Windows Server 2008 R2 virtual machines

  1. Start the virtual machine and log in as the Administrator.
  2. Open the Windows Registry editor. Click Start > Run, type regedit, and press Enter .
  3. Take a full backup of the registry prior to editing it. Do not skip this step
  4. Delete these registry keys if they exist:
    • HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Features\C2A6F2EFE6910124C940B2B12CF170FE
    • HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Products\C2A6F2EFE6910124C940B2B12CF170FE
    • HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{D86ADE52-C4D9-4B98-AA0D-9B0C7F1EBBC8}
    • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Products\C2A6F2EFE6910124C940B2B12CF170FE
    • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{FE2F6A2C-196E-4210-9C04-2B1BC21F07EF}


Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 2012 Server virtual machines

  1. Start the virtual machine and log in as the Administrator
  2. Open the Windows Registry editor. Click Start > Run, type regedit, and press Enter 
  3. Take a full backup of the registry prior to editing it. Do not skip this step
  4. Delete these registry keys if they exist

Note: On Windows 8, you need to type the preceding command within the Run prompt. This can be accessed by using the following hot key combination, Windows Key + R.
  1. Delete these registry keys if they exist:
     
    • HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Features\B634907914A56494B87EA24A33AC1F80
    • HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Products\B634907914A56494B87EA24A33AC1F80
    • HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{D86ADE52-C4D9-4B98-AA0D-9B0C7F1EBBC8}
    • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Installer\Features\B634907914A56494B87EA24A33AC1F80
    • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Installer\Products\B634907914A56494B87EA24A33AC1F80
    • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Products\B634907914A56494B87EA24A33AC1F80
    • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{9709436B-5A41-4946-8BE7-2AA433CAF108}
    • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\VMware, Inc.

Windows 10, Windows 2016 and Windows 2019 Virtual Machine 
 
  1. Start the virtual machine and log in as the Administrator
  2. Open the Windows Registry editor. Click Start > Run, type regedit, and press Enter 
  3. Take a full backup of the registry prior to editing it. Do not skip this step
  4. Delete these registry keys if they exist
  • HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Features\FABCF247D5EE2B84E959AD50317B5907
  • HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Products\FABCF247D5EE2B84E959AD50317B5907
  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Installer\Features\FABCF247D5EE2B84E959AD50317B5907
  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Installer\Products\FABCF247D5EE2B84E959AD50317B5907
  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Products\FABCF247D5EE2B84E959AD50317B5907
  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ Uninstall\{The code in the curly braces}
  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\VMware, Inc


5. Post editing the above registry HIVEs delete the “VMware Tools” folder from the installation path. Default install path is C:\Program Files\VMware\
6. Reboot machine



  All Windows virtual machines
  1. Search the registry for vmware and delete all associated entries.

    Note: On virtual machines with any other VMware products installed (for example, vCenter Server), you might not want to delete all entries. If you do have another VMware product installed, then you can skip this step if you have already removed the entries in the previous procedures.
     
  2. Close the registry editor.
  3. Open Windows Explorer.
  4. Delete the %ProgramFiles%\VMware\VMware Tools folder.
  5. Restart the virtual machine.
  6. Install the new version of VMware Tools.
Notes:

Additional Information

 
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