I'm getting the same errors trying to update vmware tools on all VMs that are running on hosts that have been updated to 4.1. Fails with update manager as well.
My host upgrades did not go so smooth either, wondering if I need to start from scratch??
I too am getting the same error: Call "VirtualMachine.MountToolsInstaller" for object "guest" on ESXi "ip address" failed.
When I attempt to install vmware tools on 2003.
I just upgraded my host from 4.0 to 4.1.
I ended up Nuking the hosts and installing from the 4.1 ISO. I could not fix any other way, seems the update went really bad. Fun..
Just out of curiosity was your ESXi installed to a 1 GB SD card? And did you use update manager? And did it complete normally or did it error out?
I have a few other hosts to update, but ESXi is installed to HDs. I was thinking the update failed on my SD card installs because it ran out of space???
My host has only been up for about 30 days, and I couldn't for some reason install 4.1 and had to use 4.0 to get it running. I just got arround to updating to 4.1 last week, and I haven't been able to install tools ever since. My update went fine via the command line. Oh my is installed on a 4Gig usb Flash drive.
I had the same problem after upgrading from 4.0 to 4.1 sphere.
Download the latest version of vmware tools from here: http://packages.vmware.com/tools
Using the datastore browser get it copied onto your SAN or local storage.
Mount the iso in the VM then install tools and you are done.