Vmware Tools service will not start The application has failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorrect

[slbentley]

Recently created a Windows 7 vm on a windows 7 host, using Workstation v.9 I could not get vmware tools to run. When attempting to start the service I aways get:

Windows could not start the VMware Tools service on Local Computer

Error 14001: The application has failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorrect. Please see the application event log or use the command-line sxstrace.exe tool for more detail.

The only software installed on the vm is a base install of Visual Studio 2013. I've found others in my company that are running VS 2013 on windows 7 on top of vmware workstation with no trouble. They were running Workstation 10 so I upgraded hoping that might help out. It didn.t. Still no vmware tools.

[admin]

Hi,

Welcome to the communities.

Found this article from Microsoft:

Prevent "The application has failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorre...

Hope this helps

[slbentley]

That specifically didn't lead me to my answer, but that pointed me in the right direction. Using the registry key mentioned in that article, plus running sxstrace lead me to the side-by-side setting I needed to set as the default. Unfortunately that fix did little more than allow vmware tools service to run. Some of the functionality of vmware tools still fails to work;  no copy and paste without going through the host "Edit" menu, no drag-and-drop.

[slbentley]

I gave up and rebuilt my vm. It worked fine after that.