I noticed that I cannot upgrade VMware Tools from 6.0 and 6.5 to 6.7 on Windows Server 2016 VMs that do not have WOW64-SUPPORT installed.
The Tools installer says it cannot access the Windows installer service.
When I add WoW64 to the VM's OS the installer works.
I couldn't find any KBs about that (although about the error message). Any ideas? This is on vSphere 6.7.
Yes, setup64
The thing is even with the newest vmware tools 10.3.10 x64, this happens!
There is another problem, vmware is using since 10.3.5, c++ redistributables 2017
-> c++ redistributables 2017 is not installable without WOW64-Support...
+ vmware-tools 10.3.10 is not installable without WOW64-Support...
At the end, we cannot use vmware-tools without WOW64.
For me this is a blame, because, we are using "Windows Server 2019 Core"
Server 2019 Core is supported since vmware-tools 10.3.5...
And there is not a single Application, we use that requires WOW64-Support...
except of vmware-tools and vcredist 2017, because vcredist is needed for vmware-tools....
--------------
There is a workaround i found out, but it will (maybe break vmware-tools)
After you installed vmware-tools, you can remove WOW64-Support again...
(But there will be maybe some snapshot errors because vmware-tools quiesce scripts will (maybe) fail)
+ you need to install and remove WOW64-Support for evey vmware-tools update...
There is a setup.exe and setup64.exe in the Windows VMware Tools. Does the error also occur when setup64.exe is invoked instead of the usual setup.exe?
Yes, setup64
The thing is even with the newest vmware tools 10.3.10 x64, this happens!
There is another problem, vmware is using since 10.3.5, c++ redistributables 2017
-> c++ redistributables 2017 is not installable without WOW64-Support...
+ vmware-tools 10.3.10 is not installable without WOW64-Support...
At the end, we cannot use vmware-tools without WOW64.
For me this is a blame, because, we are using "Windows Server 2019 Core"
Server 2019 Core is supported since vmware-tools 10.3.5...
And there is not a single Application, we use that requires WOW64-Support...
except of vmware-tools and vcredist 2017, because vcredist is needed for vmware-tools....
--------------
There is a workaround i found out, but it will (maybe break vmware-tools)
After you installed vmware-tools, you can remove WOW64-Support again...
(But there will be maybe some snapshot errors because vmware-tools quiesce scripts will (maybe) fail)
+ you need to install and remove WOW64-Support for evey vmware-tools update...