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You are here: Home / VMware / How to Manually Remove VMware Tools

How to Manually Remove VMware Tools

5 June 2009 by Simon Seagrave 20 Comments

Ever had the problem where you either have a corrupt copy of VMware Tools that can’t be updated or you perform an update and the install fails part way through leaving remnants behind?  These remnants then stop you from reinstalling VMware Tools and you are presented with the following error messages:

A previous version of VMware Tools is already installed

Error 1316 A network error occured while attempting to read from the file C:WindowsInstalledVMware Tools.msi

Even an uninstall doesn’t always work so unfortunately you’ll have to revert to to manually removing the items from the registry and file system that are stopping a new install from taking place.

The process to resolve this is simple and the following has been taken from VMware’s Knowledge Base article here.  I found that performing these steps helped resolve this problem for me.

  • Open the Windows Registry editor. Click Start > Run.

  • Type regedit press Enter.

  • Browse to HKLM SoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionuninstall. Search for the branch with a key named DisplayName and has a value of VMware Tools . Delete the branch associated with that entry. Do not delete the entire uninstall branch.

  • Browse to HKLMSoftwareClassesInstallerProducts . Search for the branch with the key named ProductName and has a value of VMware Tools . Delete the branch associated with that entry.

  • Browse to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTInstallerProducts . Search for the branch with the key named ProductName and has a value of VMware Tools . Delete the branch associated with that entry.

  • Browse to HKLM SoftwareVMware.  Delete the branch called VMware Tools .

  • Ensure the folder located in %ProgramFiles%VMwareVMware Tools is deleted.

  • Attempt to install the new version of VMware Tools, if applicable

  • In the future I might look at generating a script to perform this for me though it happens so rarely I haven’t felt the need up to now.  Let me know if you’d find a script useful.

     

    Technorati Tags: VMware,ESX,ESXi,VMTools,manually,remove,uninstall

    Filed Under: VMware

    About Simon Seagrave

    Simon is a UK based Virtualization, Cloud & IT Technology Evangelist working as a Senior Technology Consultant and vSpecialist for EMC. He loves working in the ever changing IT industry & spends most of his time working with Virtualization, Cloud & other Enterprise IT based technologies, in particular VMware, EMC and HP products.

    As well as on this site, you can find him on Twitter and Google+

    Comments

    1. Chris says

      22 January 2010 at 12:10 am

      Ok so i followed these steps. I thought i did everything correctly, but when i try to install another version of it, it always says “A newer Version Is Already Installed” Please help!

      That script would be nice to have ; )

      Reply
    2. Whocarez says

      24 March 2010 at 7:04 am

      Hi I tried to use to your tutorial. But after trying I realised that it only works on a x86 system. When using x64 additional steps are required. Under HKLMSofwareWow6432Node you’ll find additional vmware keys

      Reply
    3. Landon says

      16 July 2010 at 1:15 am

      Great article. It just saved the life of the VM I was working on. Thank you sir!

      Reply
    4. Craig says

      30 September 2010 at 8:45 pm

      Here’s an even easier way from a VMware KB article:
      http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1012693

      To correct this issue, you must perform a forced uninstall and re-install of VMware Tools.

      To uninstall and re-install VMware Tools:
      1.Right-click on the virtual machine.
      2.Click Guest > Install/Upgrade VMware Tools.
      3.Open a Console to the virtual machine and log into the guest operating system.
      4.Click Start > Run, type cmd, and click OK to open a command prompt in Windows.
      5.Change the drive to your CD-ROM drive. For example, D:.
      6.Type setup /c and press Enter to force removal of all registry entries and delete the old version of VMware Tools.
      7.In My Computer, double click the CD-ROM that contains VMware Tools.
      8.After Auto-Run starts, follow the prompts to install.

      Note: This must be done from the GUI interface. Do not launch the install by running Setup from the Command Prompt.

      9.When the installation is complete, reboot the guest operating system.

      Reply
      • Drew says

        30 October 2015 at 4:31 pm

        Thanks! This worked for me.

        Reply
        • Simon Seagrave says

          5 November 2015 at 10:14 pm

          So glad it helped. 🙂

          Reply
      • peegee says

        1 August 2017 at 2:15 pm

        THANK YOU! setup64.exe /c did the trick… quick and easy!

        Reply
      • ITBeast says

        3 September 2018 at 8:46 pm

        Craig,

        Your using the setup /c command worked like a charm once I made a few modifications to your original instructions, however it was alot easier and cleaner then manually ripping it from the registry. Here is the modified instructions…

        Here’s an even easier way from a VMware KB article:
        http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1012693

        To correct this issue, you must perform a forced uninstall and re-install of VMware Tools.

        To Force uninstall and re-install VMware Tools:
        1.Right-click on the virtual machine and Power On (In either VMWare Workstation or Player).
        2.Click Guest > Install/Upgrade VMware Tools.
        3.In the virtual machine log into the guest operating system.
        4.Click Start > Run, type cmd, and click OK to open a command prompt in Windows.

        PLEASE NOTE1: You may need to run as the Built-In Administrator Account in older versions of Windows from XP on down or you may recieve an installation error that the account does not have admin privilages even when it does.

        5.Change the drive to your CD-ROM drive. For example, D: or if you copied the VMWare Tools Contents to the Local VM Drive Then C:\Tools.

        PLEASE NOTE2: You May need to copy the contents of the VM CD-Rom when you select the Install/Upgrade VMWare Tools to the Local VM Hard Drive instead and change the directory to where you copied the tools to. Example C:(Or the applicaple Drive Letter):\Tools
        (or whatever you named the directory) Sample Command (C:\Tools). The reason is if you proceed to step 6 with the VMWare Tools running it will tell you an instance is already running, then when you close the instance the tools are removed from the VM-CD-ROM
        so you can no longer access the tools.

        6.Type setup /c and press Enter to force removal of all registry entries and delete the old version of VMware Tools
        (You will be given a warning just click OK).
        7.In My Computer (Or Computer, or This PC), double click the CD-ROM that contains VMware Tools (Or Directory on the
        VM Local Hard Drive).
        8.After Auto-Run starts, follow the prompts to install.

        PLEASE NOTE3: This must be done from the GUI interface. Do not launch the install by running Setup from the Command Prompt.

        9.When the installation is complete, reboot the guest operating system.

        Reply
    5. Ali Fakoor says

      10 August 2011 at 6:20 am

      You can also do the following procedure. Run these commands at an (elevated) command prompt:
      sc delete vmmouse
      sc delete VMMEMCTL
      sc delete VMX_svga
      sc delete VMTOOLS
      sc delete “VMWare Physical Disk Helper Servive”

      Now reboot the system and then remove the instllation entries using the windows installer cleanup utility (http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/Windows-Installer-CleanUp-Utility-Download-18442.html) [NOTE: This tools was originally available from microsoft website, but was removed due to some issues, see:http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2438651%5D

      Afterwards you can manually remove the installed program files of the VMWare Tools.

      HTH,
      Ali

      Reply
    6. Ali Fakoor says

      10 August 2011 at 6:26 am

      What if setup.exe is not available in your version [or it does not accept the /c parameter for forcefully cleaning]? Here is a solution:

      Run these commands at an (elevated) command prompt:
      sc delete vmmouse
      sc delete VMMEMCTL
      sc delete VMX_svga
      sc delete VMTOOLS
      sc delete “VMWare Physical Disk Helper Servive”

      Now reboot the system and then remove the instllation entries using the windows installer cleanup utility (http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/Windows-Installer-CleanUp-Utility-Download-18442.html) [NOTE: This tools was originally available from microsoft website, but was removed due to some issues, see:http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2438651%5D

      Afterwards you can manually remove the installed program files of the VMWare Tools.

      Hope that helps someone [in future]
      Ali

      Reply
    7. The Dude says

      26 April 2012 at 1:18 am

      Hi All,

      In order to get the above steps to work in Workstation (v8), whilst running an XP (SP3) guest I had to disable “AutoRun” in XP. This was necessary because every time that I went to perform Step 5 I got stuck. I figure that XP was already running setup and therefore I couldn’t manually run setup with the “C” switch.

      Here is a link to disabling AutoRun in XP:

      http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967715

      I hope that this helps.

      Kind Regards,

      Davo

      Reply
    8. Raphzg says

      23 May 2014 at 11:17 am

      Awesome! It was my solution. Thanks

      Reply
      • Simon Seagrave (TechHead) says

        10 June 2014 at 9:24 am

        Glad the post was of help. 🙂

        Cheers,

        Simon

        Reply
    9. Mark says

      4 September 2015 at 3:01 am

      Thanks for the instructions! This worked for me with Win 8.1.

      I think I broke my VMware Tools when I reverted back from Windows 10 to 8.1. I was able to clean everything up and reinstall with your instructions!

      Reply
      • Simon Seagrave says

        4 September 2015 at 5:57 pm

        Hi Mark,

        Great to hear the post helped you out, the feedback is always appreciated as it’s good to know they are of use. 🙂

        Did you not get on with Windows 10?

        All the best,

        Simon

        Reply
    10. Cedric Coleman says

      19 January 2016 at 4:18 am

      If nothing else works, install CrapCleaner by Piriform http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner. It has a registry function which will display all registry issues and under utilities, it has it’s own uninstall utility. I had VMware, which would not uninstall, and I was able to use CCleaner to uninstall the whole thing.

      Reply
    11. Reinaldo says

      14 July 2016 at 8:01 pm

      Thank you! Saved me hours. Was finally able to update the VMWare Tools on Windows 10.

      Reply
    12. kev says

      23 August 2016 at 4:37 pm

      what about same for linux, any chance??

      Reply
    13. G. Adair says

      24 May 2018 at 2:36 am

      Thank you! My first attempt at editing the registry. Great instructions. Was finally able to update the VMWare Tools on Windows 10.

      Reply

    Trackbacks

    1. Tirades, Nonsense and Occasional Specks of Usefulness - RoudyBob.NET - Blog Archive » Don’t Taze Me Bro: Forcibly Removing VMTools says:
      13 January 2010 at 3:38 pm

      […] http://techhead.co/how-to-manually-remove-vmware-tools […]

      Reply

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    About Me

    Simon Seagrave - TechHead - VMware EMC HP IT Tech Blogger My name is Simon Seagrave and I am a Massachusetts (ex UK) based Technical Marketing Consultant working for Dell EMC. I love my work & spend most of my time working with Virtualisation & other Enterprise IT based technologies, in particular VMware, EMC and Dell products. I am a VMware vExpert (2009 - Present).

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