View Agent 4.6 on Vista

[goody3335]

Hi everyone, I just had to upgrade to 4.6 in order to use Windows 7 sp 1 in one of my pools.  The upgrade from 4.5 to 4.6 went fine on all the servers, but I'm having an issue upgrading the agent on my Vista machines.  It worked fine for Windows 7 and XP, but of course Vista is a problem.  It validates the install and then starts.  However, it gets stuck at "stopping services."  I've canceled out of it and tried to reinstall.  I uninstalled 4.5 and tried to install 4.6.  I've tried stopping the services manually (but the service was already stopped).  I've reverted back to the most recent snapshot and tried to make sure I right click on it and install as administrator. 

I'm at a loss.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

[alefestaedist]

Did you tried to run the agent in compatibilty mode and as admin? I would try to run the agent as windows Xp...

Alex

[admin]

Make sure you are logged in as the Administrator and make sure that Vista UAC yoke is not causing a problem. Performing tasks on Vista can be a right pain, when compared to Windows XP or Windows 7.

[goody3335]

Okay, I tried running in compatibility mode…didn’t work. Then I tried turning off UAC and running while not in compatibility mode…didn’t work. Then I tried compatibility mode with UAC off…didn’t work. I ran it as an administrator every time.

Any other ideas?

Thanks!

--

Lauren Malhoit

IASTA – Network Engineer

+1.317.663.6263 (direct)

+1.317.594.8600 (main)

Blog: www.esourcingforum.com<http://www.esourcingforum.com>;

Wiki: www.esourcingwiki.com<http://www.esourcingwiki.com

[alefestaedist]

What is your vista concifguration? Sp2? I trying to reproduce the error.

Alex

[goody3335]

Yes, it is sp2. Thanks again!

--

Lauren Malhoit

IASTA – Network Engineer

+1.317.663.6263 (direct)

+1.317.594.8600 (main)

Blog: www.esourcingforum.com<http://www.esourcingforum.com>;

Wiki: www.esourcingwiki.com<http://www.esourcingwiki.com

[alefestaedist]

Just finished now with test, sorry for the delay.

Okay so what I noticed is that the installter tried to remove the service and stop the vmware snapshot service first so could be a problem of permission.

I would try this, make sure you have full permission on the view agent folder on the VM, restart all the vmware services, vmware tools too..eventually resintall vmware tools,

than run again the installer, frist 4.5 than 4.6.

If 4.5 doesnt' work again it could be a problem in  the registry, I would search for every entry of vmware..so remove vm tools thant look in the registry..clean up everything and restart installation again.

Alex

[goody3335]

Thanks for your suggestions! I did try that, but it still isn’t working. I opened a support call with VMware. They wanted me to do the same thing pretty much…still didn’t work. There are weird Windows dependencies on Vista regarding those services for some reason.

Anyway, if you have other suggestions I’d love to hear them. If support resolves it, I’ll post back.

Thanks,

--

Lauren Malhoit

IASTA – Network Engineer

+1.317.663.6263 (direct)

+1.317.594.8600 (main)

Blog: www.esourcingforum.com<http://www.esourcingforum.com>;

Wiki: www.esourcingwiki.com<http://www.esourcingwiki.com

[Linjo]

Is it 32 or 64bit version of Vista? I don't think 64bit is supported...

// Linjo

[admin]

That is correct. Only 32-bit versions of Windows Vista are supported for View Agent installation of VMware View 4.6. Please see page 15 of the View 4.6 Installation Guide at http://www.vmware.com/pdf/view-46-installation.pdf

[goody3335]

No, they’re both 32-bit. So, I should be fine there.

--

Lauren Malhoit

IASTA – Network Engineer

+1.317.663.6263 (direct)

+1.317.594.8600 (main)

Blog: www.esourcingforum.com<http://www.esourcingforum.com>;

Wiki: www.esourcingwiki.com<http://www.esourcingwiki.com

[alefestaedist]

I've tried the installation even on a windows vista sp2 64bit trying to replicate Lauren problem, but even if it is officialy unsupported the entire process went fine.

Alex

[goody3335]

The tech I was speaking with had me try to stop the vm guest composer service, but when I clicked stop it showed everything else that would stop as well…and it would have basically brought down the system. If it were just one of my Vista machines doing this I would understand, but they’re both exhibiting the same behavior while all of my Windows 7 and XP machines upgraded just fine…so I can’t imagine it’s my environment either.

Lauren

[alefestaedist]

I know it is annoying but can you give me a list of the latest patches you got on vista, just thought could be the level of patch. I did the test with a real clean client (just the SP2 and few patches on it).

Alex

[goody3335]

Here they are...it's pretty up to date.

[alefestaedist · Accepted solution]

Okay I am writing this since I've installed all the updates and continue to not have any problem with the view agent..but did some more research and found a KB from Adobe that make me thought.

This is the idea:

• create a new local/domain user with Admin permission
  
• log in with the brand new user (so it create a new profile)
  
• try to install the agent
  

if it doesnt work try this:

• Choose Start > Run.
  
• Type msconfig in the Open text box, and then press Enter.
  
• On the Startup tab, click Disable All.
  
• On the Services tab, select Hide All Microsoft Services, click Disable All, then reselect FLEXnet Licensing Service, and then click OK.
  
• In the System Configuration dialog box, click OK then Restart.
  
  Note: Upon reboot, you'll be notified that the System Configuration Utility has made changes to the way
  that Windows starts up. Click OK, and when the System Configuration Utility appears click Cancel.
  
• than try again the setup.
  

Alex

[goody3335]

Disabling the services did the trick!  Thanks for all your help!  I went through the whole process and even provisioned new VMs.  Awesome!

[alefestaedist]

you're welcome.. glad it worked!!!

[jcldg]

Hi all,

I had a similar problem, but the OS on which I tried to uninstall the View Agent 4.6 is Windows Seven.

When trying to uninstall the agent, the uninstaller got stuck, ending with an error message (Error 1921. Service VMware View Composer Guest Agent Server (vmware-viewcomposer-ga) could not be stopped. Verify that you have sufficient privileges to stop system services).

Here is what I did:

Computer -> Manage -> Services and Applications -> Services

Then I disabled the "VMware View Composer Guest Agent Server" and "VMware View Agent" services.

(You cannot stop the first service, there are too many dependencies).

After having disabled those 2 services, reboot the computer and try again to uninstall the View Agent.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Jean-Claude