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sdmusick82
Contributor
Contributor

How can I uninstall the vCenter Standalone Converter?

My vCenter Standalone Converter 5.5 installation is corrupted on a Windows Server 2012 R2 server.  Using the typical uninstall procedure through the Control Panel results in a "Could not stop service" message.  This is the message I receive regardless of whether I try to uninstall, repair, or reinstall the application.  Can someone direct me to a list of the various files and registry entries that need to be deleted to effectively remove the application to the point where I can reinstall it again?  Thanks.

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julienvarela
Commander
Commander

HI,

Did you try to start your Windows 2012 in a "Safe Mode" and then try to uninstall it again ?

Regards,

Julien.

Regards, J.Varela http://vthink.fr
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patanassov
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Hello

Converter installation consists of 3 services and 2 drivers (excluding the client that does not register in SCM). Most probably you have a problem with one of the drivers. Those are the bitmap driver (SCM name bmdrvr) and vstor driver (vstor2-mntapi20-shared). Take in to account that the bitmap driver cannot be stopped once started (i.e. machine restart is needed). It starts when the machine is being used as a source of incremental conversion. If this is the case, check whether the conversion job has been finalized; otherwise the bitmap driver starts on each machine start to keep tracking the disk changes.

The 3 services are the agent (vmware-converter-a.exe, service name vmware-converter-agent), worker(vmware-converter-w.exe, service name vmware-converter-worker), and server (vmware-converter.exe, service name vmware-converter-server). These are user space processes that can be killed.

There is nothing much interesting in registry apart from registration of these services, but if you want, see "HKCU\Software\VMware, Inc.\VMware vCenter Converter Standalone" and "HKLM\Software\VMware, Inc.\VMware vCenter Converter Standalone". The files are in "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\VMware\VMware vCenter Converter Standalone" and "%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\VMware\VMware vCenter Converter Standalone" (+ client stuff in %LOCALAPPDATA%\VMware vCenter Converter Standalone Client")

HTH

Plamen

sdmusick82
Contributor
Contributor

Plamen,

Thanks for the information regarding the services.  That was quite helpful.  Rather than uninstalling the application I was able to remove and then recreate the services using the Windows "SC.exe" tool.  Once that was done, the uninstaller worked fine.

sdmusick82

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dkvaughan
Contributor
Contributor

thanks for posting that detailed information Plamen.

i installed workstation 12 pro on a windows 10 system.   the machine had hyper-v installed and so when i ran workstation it said to disable hyper-v.   i did that and everything seemed fine.  i was able to create a linux vm.  

then i decided that i wanted to convert an old vm from hyper-v.   i thought that vcenter standalone would help do that so i installed vcenter standalone 6.  that didn't appear to be what i needed to do so i decided to uninstall it.  the uninstall failed, saying it could not stop the service.   i didn't see any converter services running. 

i decided to boot into safe mode and see if i could uninstall.   i used the msconfig boot tab, checked enable safe mode.   when it rebooted, the machine hung for about 10 minutes and then reported a DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE.  then it booted in to regular mode, not safe.   i discovered that i couldn't shutdown either.  whatever i did ended up waiting about 10 minutes and then restarting in nomral mode.  i tried all the other ways to get into safe mode like shift restart, bcdedit, etc.  nothing works.  i powered the machine down and it boots straight to normal mode.

i tried doing the shift restart reset to restore point.   that hangs for 10 minutes and then restarts in normal mode.   i tried restoring to a restore point before the vcenter converter install.   that just hangs forever.

it's like something is blocking the updates that change the boot config but there is no error.   for example bcdedit reports success; but no matter what i do it just boots back into windows 10 normal.  

i deleted all the files you mention in your message including the drivers.   for the vstor i had to rename it, then power off, then delete it.   that didn't help either; still booting into normal mode.

the machine is pretty functional outside of refusing to shutdown or go into safe mode.  one other weird symptom is that my usb doesn't seem to be recognizing anything except for my keyboard.   other things plugged in don't register at all.  that was all working fine before the converter install.

i'd like to do the restore to restore point.   however, since i can't figure out any way to get that to happen, i'm considering trying a reset.   i'm not sure if that will work either since it seems deterimined to simply restart after waiting 10 minutes.

any ideas on how to get my machine back to normal?

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mrbliss9
Contributor
Contributor

Stuck on this problem for far too many hours today. Ended up following something along the lines that others have discussed, and had to add mock versions of the named services that the uninstaller expects to exist. By tracking results in %temp%\vminst.log I was able to confirm the installer would blow up at each expected service, and putting dummy services in place allowed it to continue through to an assumed success. I then was finally able to install the latest version, and uninstall for good

sc.exe create vmware-converter-agent binPath= "c:\windows\notepad.exe"

sc.exe create vmware-converter-server binPath= "c:\windows\notepad.exe"

sc.exe create vmware-converter-worker binPath= "c:\windows\notepad.exe"

It's a real shame the installer is so brittle and doesn't check for expected services, and skip removing them if the don't exist.

joeinwap
Contributor
Contributor

The first sc.exe command was exactly what I needed.

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nachogonzalez
Commander
Commander

Are you trying to uninstall converter with services stopped?

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scott28tt
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

The OP hasn't commented on the thread since 2013, a new comment from another user caused this thread to bubble up over the weekend.


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Although I am a VMware employee I contribute to VMware Communities voluntarily (ie. not in any official capacity)
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nachogonzalez
Commander
Commander

My sincere apologies

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scott28tt
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

No need to apologise, I was just letting you know Smiley Happy


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Although I am a VMware employee I contribute to VMware Communities voluntarily (ie. not in any official capacity)
VMware Training & Certification blog
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