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AlanTheBeast
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Service 'VMware Alias Manager and Ticket Service' (VGAuthService) failed to start. Verify that you have sufficient privileges to start system services"

Service 'VMware Alias Manager and Ticket Service' (VGAuthService) failed to start. Verify that you have sufficient privileges to start system services".

Searched the various common solutions.

However:

Mentioned solutions (such as removing  C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools  ) do not work.  Indeed there are no such directories in C:\Program Files .

Even tried creating empty directories for it to find. No dice.

Yes I am set up as admin on the VM (Win 7).

Mac OS 10.14.2.

Fusion 11.5.1 (coming from Fusion 7.x).  HW v. 16.

Thanks, Beast.

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AlanTheBeast
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Update: found a suggestion to run via the "D:" setup and setup 64 for 64 bit VM's.

That didn't work either.  Another also from steve goddard:

Re: Fusion 11 VMware tools update fails

... I can't get past the step: .... - In the same cmd.exe window type "cd %TEMP%\{Some GUID number}~setup"  Note the GUID depends on the version of tools....

As I have no idea what the GUID number should be.

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steve_goddard
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Hi there,

It could be a VC runtime issue that is not installed correctly or missing some DLLs that the VGAuth service needs to run.

If you run a command prompt (cmd.exe) and execute (assuming you have mounted the tools ISO in your CDROM and it is mapped to drive D):

D:\setup.exe /x

or

D:\Setup64.exe /x

It will extract the vcredist_x86.exe and vcredist_x64.exe into a folder such as

%TEMP%\{SOMEGUID}~setup

cd %TEMP%

dir

cd {SOMEGUID}~setup

where the SOMEGUID will depend on the version of Tools you are installing and you should find it in the %TEMP% folder

(which is your user account temporary folder)

If you go to the folder you will find the following

vcredist_x64.exe

vcredist_x86.exe

VMware Tools64.msi

(This assumes 64 bit Windows)

You can now run both vcredist*.exe files and install them. Hopefully they will succeed.

If they do you can try to install the VMware Tools again, by either

msiexec.exe /I "VMware Tools64.msi"

or

D:\setup.exe

or

D:\Setup64.exe

That should then install tools again.

Folders for the extracted tools (I think you are installing VMware Tools version 11.0.0) but here are

VMware Tools version 11.0.5

{25932044-BBC8-444F-ACF4-7E508054FA12}~setup

VMware Tools version 11.0.0

{7B09CBED-1199-4BA3-9948-A28DB7C9C396}~setup

Thanks. Steve
AlanTheBeast
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Well, progress of some kind.  Thanks for your patience Steve.

I located the two Visual C .exe's in the directory you indicated - on the C: drive.

I ran vcredist_x64 and got eh VC 2015-2019 14.20.27508 "Modify Setup".  I hit repair.  Setup Successful.

then .... x86. .... Result as above ... Setup Successful.

Then tried the msiexec.exe /I "VMware Tools64.msi" and got a splash <meant to show the splash screen here>  But image didn't post.  Now I can't re-create the error....

IAC went ahead with the install VMWareTools from the VMWare Fusion command bar and got no further than the subject error.

Feels like progress without winning the war!

Thanks.  But what next?

Cheers,

Beast.

steve_goddard
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Hello,

It would seem the vcredist files installed fine then.

So it appears that means that something else is preventing the VGAuth service from starting up.

First things first, if you cd %TEMP% for your logged on account either in a cmd.exe or using File Explorer window,

you should find, files such as

vminst.log and vmmsi.log or with similar containing timestamps of when they were modified/created.

Can you zip them and put them some place I can download them and email me the location at sgoddard@vmware.com?

I would be interested to see what our installer log files show.

Since you now the those VC runtime packages installed, then another option opens up:

Again, if you have the tools ISO mounted in the CDROM (and for example mapped to drive D) then from your cmd.exe window

d:\setup64.exe /A

Here the /A option will allow you to extract the contents of the installer files to a location on your local disk (just enter a path in the resulting dialog box).

It doesn't actually install but stages all of the files on to the drive.

You can then try and run some of the binaries manually just to see if things run at all.

E.g if you install to C:\

In your command window

cd "C:\VMware\VMware Tools\"

vmtoolsd.exe --version

Should report the version.

if go into the "VMware VGAUth" folder and try

VGAuthService.exe

It will fail but it would be interesting to see what it does.

Anyway, things to try and see what issues/complaints are reported. Along with the logs would be great.

Thanks

Thanks. Steve
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AlanTheBeast
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi Steve.

The install logs are in:   https://www.dropbox.com/s/kcce7qsxmsr4k3a/VMW-instlogs.zip https://www.dropbox.com/s/kcce7qsxmsr4k3a/VMW-instlogs.zip

I'll try your other suggestions too....

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steve_goddard
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

I downloaded the logs and looked through them. Many thanks!

First, other than the VGAuthService.exe consistently failing to start I didn't see anything else that was obvious.

The vminst.log file has many attempts to install 11.0.0 VMware Tools build 14549434 from 2020-06-02 14:31 onwards.

Immediately preceding this was a 9.8.3 VMware Tools build 2075148 installed from 2014-10-17 11:19. Long time back.

That version was shipped with Fusion 7.0.

There was nothing in between those, not an uninstall or upgrade. So not sure if snapshots were taken after and restored meant that

the intermediate stages were lost or it was done under a different user account so that it would be in a different file under that user's

temp folder location, but either way, it looks like a new install of 11.0.0 is being attempted.

I would be interested to see what errors occur if you run the binaries manually from the staging folder with the Setup64.exe /A

Also, it might be helpful if you run the Event Viewer (Administrative Tools) or command line use eventvwr.msc to see if there is anything under the Windows logs (system or application)

Please let me know if you find anything suspicious.

Is your Windows 7 VM up to date with respect to the Windows Updates?

Thanks. Steve
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steve_goddard
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

One additional thought, as I was looking over previously reported issues like this.

Do you have any files in "C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools\" or does that even exist before you install 11.0.0 Tools?

Just wondering if we had a DLL being loaded from a prior install of Tools that is built with a different runtime version and is causing an issue.

Also, the logs didn't show it, but it might have been in a different file, but did you have a prior install of VMware Tools and upgrade it before trying the 11.0.0 which failed?

What was the prior Tools version installed before 11.0.0? If so, do you know if there was an upgrade from that or just remove it as an uninstall first?

Thanks. Steve
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MarvinDRobot
Contributor
Contributor

Hi, Really helpful discussion, thanks.
Just my tuppenyworth, I too had the same error about service failing to start & what fixed it for me was repairing the MS Visual C++ 2017 redistributable. Once x86 & x64 versions repaired the VMWare tools installed without a problem. The error started after a normal reboot after the C++ update was installed yesterday. Couldn't repair VMtools so tried a reinstall & that had failed.
Using Win 10 guest on VSphere 6.7.

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Guddler
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I'm just sitting here now waiting for the first of the two VCRedist packages to do it's repair. It's been coming up to an hour now and the progress bar is less than half way - but we all know Microsoft is pretty useless when it comes to time estimates and progress bars!!

I seriously hope this solves the problem and gets the VMWare Tools installed after all this. I'm in the process of updating an old Yoesmite machine with Mojave and migrated my VMs from Parallels to Fusion since I didn't want to pay the upgrade tax for Parallels when I have a perfectly good and unused Fusion 11 license (they also had the nerve to tell me I'd activated my license too many times and needed to buy a new one - but that's another story!). So far this is VM 1 of 3 that I need to migrate so it looks like this is going to be a very long and painful process!

Reminds me why I no longer use Windows (or MacOS much for that matter either)

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MarchioriMaycon
Contributor
Contributor

No meu caso, funcionou esse procedimento.

01º - Desinstalei no Arquivos e Programas versões já instaladas do Visual C++

02º - Instalei as versões descompactadas do VMtools e rodei o instalador novamente, instalou com sucesso!

 

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michael3210
Contributor
Contributor

This solved 100% my problem, thanks a lot for that !

In my case i also had "Install VMWare Tools..." greyed out in the VM menu (first only greyed out after the installation failed, and afterwards greyed out even after I restart the VM) so I had to mount the VMWare ISO myself (VM --> Removable Devices --> CD/DVD and then choose on my OS [Ubuntu] /usr/lib/vmware/isoimages/windows.iso)

Thanks again for the useful solution.

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DesIta
Contributor
Contributor

I solved it in some old Win 7 installation by manually installing kb4457144 -> https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=KB4457144

This is a security update that seems to be missing also after updating Windows both by Windows Update online or WSUS Offlline.

Good the tip to manually start VGAuthService.exe to check what is wrong -> api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0.dll was missing

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