Starting a virtual machine in Workstation or Fusion fails with the error: This virtual machine's policies are too old to be run by this version of VMware

Products

• VMware Desktop Hypervisor

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:
When trying to start a virtual machine in VMware Workstation 9.x and above or VMware Fusion 5.x and above, you see one of these errors:

• This virtual machine's policies are too old to be run by this version of VMware. Contact your system administrator
• Error while loading the virtual machine's policies: A required file was not found.

Environment

VMware Workstation Pro 14.x (for Windows)
VMware Fusion Pro 8.x
VMware Workstation 11.x (for Linux)
VMware Workstation 10.x (Linux)
VMware Workstation Player 15.x (Windows)
VMware Workstation 9.x (Windows)
VMware Workstation 10.x (Windows)
VMware Workstation Pro 15.x (Linux)
VMware Fusion 6.x
VMware Player 7.x (Linux)
VMware Workstation Player 14.x (Windows)
VMware Fusion 8.x
VMware Player 5.x (Windows)
VMware Player Pro 7.x (Windows)
VMware Workstation 9.x (Linux)
VMware Workstation Player 15.x (Linux)
VMware Player 6.x (Linux)
VMware Workstation Player 14.x (Linux)
VMware Fusion 5.x
VMware Fusion 10.x
VMware Player 7.x (Windows)
VMware Player Pro 7.x (Linux)
VMware Workstation Player 12.x (Linux)
VMware Fusion Pro 10.x
VMware Player 5.x (Linux)
VMware Workstation Pro 15.x (Windows)
VMware Workstation Player 12.x (Windows)
VMware Player 6.x (Windows)
VMware Workstation Pro 14.x (for Linux)
VMware Workstation 11.x (for Windows)
VMware Fusion 7.x

Cause

This issue can occur in these scenarios:

• When you attempt to start a virtual machine having an older Hardware version, which has certain policies set for it.
• When you attempt to start a virtual machine which was shared in Workstation 8.x.
• In Workstation 9.x and above or Fusion 5.x and above, when you attempt to start an ACE virtual machine which was created with Workstation 7.x.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, manually edit the virtual machine's configuration file (the .vmx file):

1. Locate the virtual machine's files. For more information, see:
    
   • For Workstation: Locating a hosted virtual machine's files (1003880)
   • For VMware Fusion: Locating the virtual machine bundle in VMware Fusion (1007599)
      
2. Open the virtual machine's configuration file (.vmx) using a text editor. For more information, see:
    
   • For Workstation: Tips for editing a .vmx file (1714)
   • For VMware Fusion: Editing the .vmx file for your VMware Fusion virtual machine (1014782)
     
     Note: Take a backup of the .vmx file before modifying it.
      
3. Remove the lines which are similar to:
   
   policy.vm.mvmtid = "52 d6 6f f9 ## ## ## ##-## ## ## ## 90 7b ce 76"
policy.vm.managedVMTemplate = "TRUE"
policy.vm.managedVM = "FALSE"
    
4. Save the file and close the text editor.
    
5. Start the virtual machine and verify.

 

Note: If you still encounter the error, then browse to the location where the virtual machine files exist. Search for a file with the extension .vmpl, and rename it to .vmpl.old.

Warning: Renaming/deleting this file from a restricted virtual machine will break it permanently. Contact VMware Technical support for further help in such a scenario.