The legacy VMware Tools installation fail after open-vm-tools is removed

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

The VMware Tools service on ESXi 5.1.x and 5.5.x does not boot after you have uninstalled the open-vm-tools and installed legacy VMware Tools in SLE12.

Status message similar to the following is displayed in VMware Tools status in VMware vSphere Client after you reboot the virtual machine:

Not running(Not installed)

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 5.5
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.0
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.1

Resolution

Follow these steps to fix this issue:

1. Setup a virtual machine and install SLES12 GM.
2. Run the following command to uninstall the open-vm-tools:
   # rpm -e open-vm-tools-desktop-9.4.0-9.24.x86_64
# rpm -e open-vm-tools-9.4.0-9.24.x86_64
3. Launch the VMware Tools and install in VMware vSphere Client.
4. Unzip the VMware Tools package and install legacy tools with -k and -d option.
   # ./vmware-install.pl -d -f
5. Reboot the virtual machine.

Additional Information

For translated versions of this article, see:

• 简体中文: 移除 open-vm-tools 后，旧版 VMware Tools 安装失败 (2145005)
• 日本語: open-vm-tools を削除した後にレガシー VMware Tools インストールが失敗する (2145007)