VMware Snapshot Provider service fails to install on French versions of Windows 2008 R2 and Windows 7

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Creating a snapshot (including the memory state) of a virtual machine running Windows 2008 R2 and Windows 7 fails
• You see the error:
  
  Cannot create a quiesced snapshot because the create snapshot operation exceeded the time limit for holding off I/O in the frozen virtual machine
   
• Cannot install the VMware Snapshot Provider service when installing VMware Tools
• Uninstalling and re-installing VMware Tools does not resolve this issue
• VMware Snapshot Provider is not listed under Services - COM+ Applications list
• Manually registering the VMware Snapshot Provider fails
• Running comreg.exe returns the error:
  
  CustomAction VM_RegisterVCBSnapshotProviderService returned actual error code -2147418113 but will be translated to success due to continue marking (the error code is 0x8000FFFF which is E_UNEXPECTED)

Environment

VMware ESX 4.0.x
VMware ESXi 4.0.x Installable
VMware ESXi 4.0.x Embedded

Cause

This issue occurs due to a hard-coded variable (SYSTEM) in the comreg.exe file provided with the vmware-tools installer.

Resolution

 

To resolve this issue, you must use the modified version of comreg.exe attached to the article.

 

To use the modified version of comreg.exe :

1. Replace the existing comreg.exe file located in the C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools\data\ folder within the virtual machine with the comreg.exe file attached to this article. Use comreg32.zip if your guest is running a 32-bit operating system. Use comreg64.zip if your guest is running a 64-bit operating system.
2. Manually register the VMware Snapshot Provider service.

 

Note: This bug has been fixed in 4.0U3.

 

Additional Information

Note: Both hostd and VMware Tools are updated to fix quiesced snapshots on Windows 2008 R2.

Ensure that ESX build 256968 or later is installed. Also, install ESX 4.0 Patch ESX400-201005401-SG. For more information, see VMware ESX 4.0, Patch ESX400-201005401-SG: Updates apps, cim, exsupdate, scripts, tools, vmkernel64, uwlibs, kernel, and openssl (1013127).

VMware ESX 4.0, Patch ESX400-201005401-SG: Updates apps, cim, exsupdate, scripts, tools, vmkernel64, uwlibs, kernel, and openssl