VMWare PRO Trial Expired and Now Can't Use Workstation Player

[John_Davis]

Sorry if this has been asked before, but I couldn't find anything relating to my issue.

Some time ago I downloaded a trial version of VMware Pro.

Last week the grace period expired and so I downloaded VMware Player but I cannot open any VMs. I keep getting a message: "Failed to Open Virtual Machine: Internal Error."

Is this due to the expired Pro version? Am I able to unwind things so that I can use VMware Player?

[scott28tt]

Moderator: Moved to Workstation Player

[Alex_Romeo]

Hi,

The trial period is used to test the product and then purchase it. Certainly it depends on the product that has expired.

Buy the license.

ARomeo

[John_Davis]

But I don't need the Pro version and just want to revert to using the Player version.

Somehow it seems that the previous Pro trial version has locked out the Player version, which is free for non-commercial use.

There seems to be some sort of "crumb" left behind that is preventing the free version from working.

[Alex_Romeo · Accepted solution]

Hi,

delete the registry key you have between these two (32bit or 64bit version)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\VMware, Inc.\VMware Workstation
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\VMware, Inc.\VMware Workstation

1.     Close VMware Player.

2.     Press Win+R, type regedit.exe in the text box, and press Enter.

3.     Navigate to the correct path described above.

4.     Locate the license registry key, right-click it and choose Delete from the context menu.

ARomeo

[RDPetruska]

Are you launching vmware.exe, or vmplayer.exe?  The vmplayer (Player UI) should still work to run existing virtual machines.

[Alex_Romeo]

Hi,

you must remove the registry keys related to the expired product.

ARomeo

[John_Davis]

Thank you very much Alessandro.

Fixed!!