Upgrading the VMware Tools on powered off virtual machines using VMware vCenter Update Manager fail

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Cannot upgrade the VMware Tools on powered off virtual machines using VMware vCenter Update Manager
• Upgrading the VMware Tools on powered off virtual machines using vCenter Update Manager fail
• In the vmware-vum-server-log4cpp.log file (located at C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\Update Manager or C:\Users\All Users\VMware\VMware Update Manager\Logs), you see entries similar to:
  
  
  UfaVmMounter' 5792 INFO] [ufaDiskMounter, 337] Opening computer..
  'ChainedTaskContainer.ChainedTaskContainer{10}' 5792 ERROR] [singleVMToolsRemediateSuperTask, 383] Cannot access sysprep settings on the VMNAMEXXXX, error: vmodl.fault.SystemError
  'ChainedTaskContainer.ChainedTaskContainer{10}' 5792 ERROR] [singleVMToolsRemediateSuperTask, 503] VciTask { id: ChainedTaskContainer{10}, type: ChainedTaskContainer }: Remediation error: integrity.fault.SysprepAccessFailure
  
  [06784 error 'Default'] [diskWin32,199] Opening vpxa-nfc://[datastorename] VMNAMEXXXX/VMNAMEXXXX.vmdk@esxihostname:902!52 d0 75 c6 2a 53 e1 7e-e5 54 3a 4c 75 a0 e7 cc failed with error2338

Environment

VMware vCenter Update Manager 5.5.x
VMware vCenter Update Manager 5.1.x

Cause

This issue occurs because vCenter Update Manager cannot access the sysprep settings on the virtual machine.

Resolution

To work around this issue, disable the sysprep handling parameter (<disableSysprepHandling>)in vCenter Update Manager:

1. On the Windows machine (in which Update Manager is installed), navigate to the Update Manager server installation directory.
   
   Note: By default, the location in 64-bit Windows is C:\Program Files(x86) \VMware\Infrastructure\Update Manager.
   
   
2. From Update Manager installation directory, open the vci-integrity.xml file with an XML editor and locate for this section:
   
   <vci_vcIntegrity>
   
   
3. Inside the section <vci_vcIntegrity> (such as between tags <vci_vcIntegrity> ... </vci_vcIntegrity>), add the new entry as:
   
   <disableSysprepHandling>true</disableSysprepHandling>
   
   
4. Restart both VMware vCenter Update Manager service and VMware vCenter Update Manager UFA service. To do this:
   
   1. Click Start > Run, type services.msc and press Enter.
   2. From the list of services, right-click VMware vSphere Update Manager Service and click Restart and wait for the service to restart.
   3. From the list of services, right-click VMware vSphere Update Manager UFA Service and click Restart and wait for the service to restart.
      
      
5. Remediate the offline virtual machines to upgrade VMware Tools.
6. Open the vci-integrity.xml file with an XML editor, locate this line and delete only that line.
   
   <disableSysprepHandling>
   
   
7. Restart both VMware vCenter Update Manager service and VMware vCenter Update Manager UFA service again.

Additional Information

Impact/Risks: