"Installing VMWare Tools" "system cannot find the drive" (upgrader.exe)

[Henrik-R]

Hi!

I am trying to create a Windows 10 Pro virtual machine on an Ubuntu 20.04 Lenovo Thinkpad laptop. It was originally bought with Windows 10 Pro and according to https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-L-R-and-SL-series-Laptops/Corrupt-OS-on-IdeaFlex-5/m-p/5094994... the Windows Product Key is encoded in the motherboard.

The VM is created and boots Windows 10, Then after some time I get the error "Windows cannot find 'C:\Users\.....\upgrader.exe'.

Behind that pop-up window I can see a Terminal window with the following message:

"Installing VMWare Tools ... Please wait a few seconds.

The system cannot find the drive specified.."

So what do I do?

[RaSystemlord]

There has been some discussions about this. You probably don't have CD/DVD on a new laptop.

However, VMware Tools needs the virtual CD/DVD. Now you probably don't have it and thus the Tools Upgrade fails. I'm not sure, since I haven't had this problem, but you probably just need to create a virtual CD/DVD under Hardware in VM Settings.

[Henrik-R]

Hi

Thank you for your reply!

I DO have a physical DVD drive. But VMWare is installing Windows 10 directly from an .ISO-file.

Do I need to so something with that file?

Or do I need to 'move' VMWare Tools to a virtual DVD drive in some way?

[RaSystemlord]

OK, but are you actually at the stage of installing Windows 10? That is not what I meant previously.

If you are installing Windows 10 from ISO, forget the VMware Tools install at the same time (that's just confusing for me to try to do very different things at the same time, I don't know why it is even suggested).

So, just install your Windows 10, reboot and then when it is up and running go ahead and install VMware Tools. If everything works fine in Windows 10 (like screen resolution in a tolerable way), you can postpone VMware Tools install after you have installed all the Windows Updates or possibly an Upgrade.

When you have Win 10 computer running normally, you don't need to do anything specific for Tools install. Just follow the "pop-up" view, which may be minimized, in order to select the start of the install. I don't think the CD/DVD -setting matters at this stage - I certainly never have physical DVD or even virtual ISO, turned ON during normal use.

[Henrik-R]

Hi!

I agree that it's strange that VMWare Workstation wants to update VMWare Tools simultaneously to creating the Win10 VM.

Now it's created. I started Windows Update. After installing a bunch of updates I had to press a "Restart"-button. Then Win10 restarted and seems to work fine, although it will only fill about half of my actual screen size. Do you know how to improve that?

I could even do a VMWare Tools "Check for updates", which said "Up to date". 🙂

[RaSystemlord]

OK, there are ways, but ...

terminology varies, but are you sure you are looking at VMware Tools update (and not VMware Workstation Update)? It should perhaps say "Reinstall Tools".

Are you really using Player and not Workstation Pro? In Pro, you have to select from the menus, how you want your Guest views to behave.

As such, the matter of not getting OS views to automatically adjust to VMware view, is, in Player, because of VMware Tools are not working. They are out-of-date after a Feature Upgrade in Windows 10, for instance.

You can also adjust, in the meantime, the Windows resolution to something proper, by using the Display Manager of Windows - select something like 1400x1000, which should fit into a HD view nicely - I mean, so that everything is still visible without scroll bars.

I hope some of that helps.

[Henrik-R]

Thank you very much!

Changing Display Resolution inside Windows 10 definitely helps!

I am using: VMware® Workstation 16 Player - 16.1.2 build-17966106

I have attached a screen shot of the latest message, which says:

"Software updates

All updates finished

VMWare Tools for Windows Vista or later - version 11.2.6 - finished"

Edition/Addition: The Win10 ISO file is brand new: Win10_21H1_EnglishInternational_x64.iso

[RaSystemlord]

Are you installing the Tools from within VMware? From its menus? I cannot deduct it from your  menus (since I don't have Windows versions available right now).

I'm asking, because there are Open Source Tools available, usable in Linux, at least, but I'm not familiar with them. Certainly, I wouldn't use them in Windows.

You need to have Admin rights in Windows to install the Tools - if you didn't, they might not work because of that.

[Henrik-R]

You are right:

VMWare Tools is NOT running. In the latest pop-up window, after restarting the VM, the new message is:

"The VMWare Tools package is not running in this virtual machine. ... To install it, choose VM -> Install VMWare Tools... after the guest operating system starts."

But that menu item is grey, so I cannot choose it. This is confusing...

I have attached the message.

[ajgringo619 · Accepted solution]

There are a couple of ways to manually install the VMware Tools for Windows:

1. if you have /usr/lib/vmware/isoimages/windows.iso, you could mount it in the VM and run setup from there.
2. (this is the option I use) you can install chocolately - https://chocolatey.org/ - and install VMware Tools from powershell.

[Henrik-R]

I do have the windows.iso you mention. But how do I mount it in the Windows 10 VM?

[ajgringo619]

From the Settings menu, go here:

Click Browse, then select the ISO you want to mount.

[Henrik-R]

Are you sure about that? That field already contains a link to the ISO-file I used to create the Win10 VM:

/mnt/4AF15A0435E762B4/Downloads Ubuntu/Win10_21H1_EnglishInternational_x64.iso

It doesn't seem right to me, to just delete it and replace it with /usr/lib/vmware/isoimages/windows.iso ?

[ajgringo619]

There's no reason to keep the installation ISO in that field; remove it, if you like, and you'll see it's not needed. This virtual device is designed to mount ISOs of any kind, especially installation CDs/DVDs.

[Henrik-R]

You are right. 🙂

The Tools installed perfectly. And Win10 restarted. Thank you!

Tomorrow I will start trying to send files etc. between the Win10 VM and the Ubuntu host system.

[RaSystemlord]

I'm glad you got that sorted out.

As for copying files, please open another thread, if needed, and mark this as solved.

I would like to get some clarity to this file copy matter myself ... it's really confusing in my environment ... it used to work like a charm in previous versions, but now it either doesn't work and it gives modal error messages that you need to quit before the computer is released. I have disabled everything from VMware and started to use a NAS-drive in host network for copying, but STILL VMware keeps on interfering with the copy/move ... I don't get millions of modal error messages, but still some. My Host is Kubuntu 20.04.2, but this might not make a difference compared to Ubuntu LTS (but it perhaps could because file browser is different).