Unable to create local user accounts for some services while upgrading to vCenter Server 6.5

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

• You are unable to create local user accounts for some services on restricted environments while upgrading to VMware vCenter Server 6.5.
• This may not be limited to eam, vsphere-client, vsphere-psc, vpxd, etc.

Resolution

 In certain environments, the local user service accounts created will need to be changed to run as a service account to proceed further.

To run as a service account:

Note: Take a back up before proceeding.

    1. Run the below command to change users on the upgraded system.

    C:\Program Files\VMware\vCenter Server\vmon\vmon-cli --update <svcname> -R [email protected]

    2. Verify that vMON is aware of the username by updating the registry entry:

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\VMware, Inc.\VMware VirtualCenter\AccountInfo

    3. If the username is not present, run following command to allow vMON to identify the user

    %VMWARE_CIS_HOME%/vmon/vmon.exe -P [email protected]

    4. Start all services with this command.

    C:\Program Files\VMware\vCenter Server\bin\service-control --start --all

    Note:

•         In vCenter Server 6.5, these services do not show up in services.msc.
•         The username is as given to vmon-cli --update command
•         In the vmon.exe -P command, you would be prompted for a password by a flashing cursor.
•         For step 3, quotes ("") may be needed around %VMWARE_CIS_HOME%/vmon/vmon.exe in some cases.
      Example:  "%VMWARE_CIS_HOME%/vmon/vmon.exe" -P [email protected]
•     Run vmon-cli --list to list out services that need to be changed, as they are named differently for vmon.
•          Service names are case sensitive, check case if the following error displays:
           Failed to set run as user. Make sure that username is in UPN format.  Error: Invalid input data