02-09-2024, 09:39 AM
So, you’ve got VMware Tools installed on a guest operating system, and now you're thinking it might be a good idea to uninstall it. Whether it’s for troubleshooting, moving to a different driver, or just cleaning up, getting rid of VMware Tools isn’t too complicated. Trust me; I’ve done it more times than I can count, and I’ll walk you through how I would do it step by step, like how I’d explain it casually to a friend.
First, let’s choose the guest OS you’re working with. Is it Windows or Linux? I’ll share how to handle both, but let’s start with Windows since that tends to be the common platform. You want to boot up your guest OS and log in like you normally do. Once you’re in, you should go to the Control Panel. If you’ve been using Windows for a while, you probably know where this is. Just hit the Start button and search for Control Panel; it’s usually one of the first results.
When you’ve got the Control Panel open, look for “Programs and Features.” You know the drill; it’s where all your installed applications hang out. Once you click on that, you'll see a list of everything installed on your machine, and you're looking specifically for VMware Tools there.
When you spot it, just click on it to highlight it. You should see an option to uninstall or change. As soon as you click on that option, the uninstallation process will kick off. A wizard might pop up, and it will guide you through the removal. All you need to do is follow the prompts. This step is typically pretty straightforward. Can't go wrong here, just give it what it asks.
After everything’s uninstalled, you might get a prompt to restart your guest OS. I personally always reboot right away just to make sure everything’s clean. Sometimes it's surprising how a little thing like a driver can impact performance, so it’s good to refresh everything.
Now, moving on to Linux. Uninstalling VMware Tools here is a bit different but just as easy once you know the commands. First, you have to get into your guest OS, login, and open up a terminal. If you’re a command line fan like I am, this part can actually be quite enlightening. Depending on how you installed VMware Tools initially, the uninstallation may vary.
If you installed VMware Tools via a package manager, you’re usually dealing with commands like apt or yum. So, for Debian-based systems (like Ubuntu), you'd use the following command to remove VMware Tools: `sudo apt-get remove open-vm-tools` or something similar if you have a different package name. Just run this command in the terminal, and it should take care of it. For Red Hat-based systems, you might use `sudo yum remove open-vm-tools` instead.
If you installed VMware Tools from a tarball or any other manual method, you’ll want to be in the directory where you untarred it. That’ll usually be something like `/usr/lib/vmware-tools`. There should be a script called `vmware-uninstall-tools.pl`. You can run that script directly from the terminal using `sudo perl vmware-uninstall-tools.pl`.
Once you’ve executed that command, the script will start, and you’ll just need to follow its prompts. It will basically walk you through removing all the components. This approach will properly clean everything up, and it helps to avoid leftover files, which can sometimes cause issues later on.
After the uninstallation in Linux, just like with Windows, it’s a good practice to reboot the system. You don’t want any lingering components messing with performance or anything else after you’ve done the heavy lifting of removing VMware Tools.
While you’re removing VMware Tools, it might be a good time to consider if you need to install a different set of tools or maybe even upgrade VMware Tools on another guest OS. If you plan to reinstall them, make sure you download the latest version from the VMware website or use the tools built into the VMware interface to ensure you have the most updated components when resetting everything back up.
In case you encounter any issues where the uninstallation seems to hang or throw errors, you might want to check the logs. On Windows, you can typically find logs in the TEMP folder, and on Linux, you might want to look at `/var/log/vmware-installer`. Logs can be super helpful for figuring out what went wrong if it doesn’t go as smoothly as it should. Trust me, I've been there, and it's annoying, but sometimes finding the error in the logs can help pinpoint the problem so you can fix it.
Remember, every guest OS is a little different, so if one step feels completely off or doesn’t work, don’t hesitate to use Google or check the VMware community forums for your specific situation. Everyone runs into little bumps along the way, and there’s a solid chance someone else has also faced the same issue.
After uninstalling VMware Tools, there are times when I check for leftover services running in the background just to keep things tidy. You can do this by looking at your services on Windows to ensure nothing from VMware is still hanging around. For Linux, you can check running processes using commands like `ps aux | grep vmware` to see if anything is still active and, if needed, kill those processes.
Oh, and don’t forget about snapshots! If you created a snapshot of your VM before installing VMware Tools or before starting the uninstallation, keep that in mind. It could come in handy if you need to revert to a previous state for any reason. It's always good to have those options available.
So, when it comes down to it, uninstalling VMware Tools isn't a huge deal once you have the steps worked out in your mind. Just remember to pay attention to the little details, and don't hesitate to ask for help if you get stuck. These experiences can be a bit frustrating, but they also teach you so much along the way. And that’s what it’s all about, right? Learning as you go!
![[Image: Vmware-Workstation-Backup-Software.jpg]](https://backup.education/images/Vmware-Workstation-Backup-Software.jpg)
First, let’s choose the guest OS you’re working with. Is it Windows or Linux? I’ll share how to handle both, but let’s start with Windows since that tends to be the common platform. You want to boot up your guest OS and log in like you normally do. Once you’re in, you should go to the Control Panel. If you’ve been using Windows for a while, you probably know where this is. Just hit the Start button and search for Control Panel; it’s usually one of the first results.
When you’ve got the Control Panel open, look for “Programs and Features.” You know the drill; it’s where all your installed applications hang out. Once you click on that, you'll see a list of everything installed on your machine, and you're looking specifically for VMware Tools there.
When you spot it, just click on it to highlight it. You should see an option to uninstall or change. As soon as you click on that option, the uninstallation process will kick off. A wizard might pop up, and it will guide you through the removal. All you need to do is follow the prompts. This step is typically pretty straightforward. Can't go wrong here, just give it what it asks.
After everything’s uninstalled, you might get a prompt to restart your guest OS. I personally always reboot right away just to make sure everything’s clean. Sometimes it's surprising how a little thing like a driver can impact performance, so it’s good to refresh everything.
Now, moving on to Linux. Uninstalling VMware Tools here is a bit different but just as easy once you know the commands. First, you have to get into your guest OS, login, and open up a terminal. If you’re a command line fan like I am, this part can actually be quite enlightening. Depending on how you installed VMware Tools initially, the uninstallation may vary.
If you installed VMware Tools via a package manager, you’re usually dealing with commands like apt or yum. So, for Debian-based systems (like Ubuntu), you'd use the following command to remove VMware Tools: `sudo apt-get remove open-vm-tools` or something similar if you have a different package name. Just run this command in the terminal, and it should take care of it. For Red Hat-based systems, you might use `sudo yum remove open-vm-tools` instead.
If you installed VMware Tools from a tarball or any other manual method, you’ll want to be in the directory where you untarred it. That’ll usually be something like `/usr/lib/vmware-tools`. There should be a script called `vmware-uninstall-tools.pl`. You can run that script directly from the terminal using `sudo perl vmware-uninstall-tools.pl`.
Once you’ve executed that command, the script will start, and you’ll just need to follow its prompts. It will basically walk you through removing all the components. This approach will properly clean everything up, and it helps to avoid leftover files, which can sometimes cause issues later on.
After the uninstallation in Linux, just like with Windows, it’s a good practice to reboot the system. You don’t want any lingering components messing with performance or anything else after you’ve done the heavy lifting of removing VMware Tools.
While you’re removing VMware Tools, it might be a good time to consider if you need to install a different set of tools or maybe even upgrade VMware Tools on another guest OS. If you plan to reinstall them, make sure you download the latest version from the VMware website or use the tools built into the VMware interface to ensure you have the most updated components when resetting everything back up.
In case you encounter any issues where the uninstallation seems to hang or throw errors, you might want to check the logs. On Windows, you can typically find logs in the TEMP folder, and on Linux, you might want to look at `/var/log/vmware-installer`. Logs can be super helpful for figuring out what went wrong if it doesn’t go as smoothly as it should. Trust me, I've been there, and it's annoying, but sometimes finding the error in the logs can help pinpoint the problem so you can fix it.
Remember, every guest OS is a little different, so if one step feels completely off or doesn’t work, don’t hesitate to use Google or check the VMware community forums for your specific situation. Everyone runs into little bumps along the way, and there’s a solid chance someone else has also faced the same issue.
After uninstalling VMware Tools, there are times when I check for leftover services running in the background just to keep things tidy. You can do this by looking at your services on Windows to ensure nothing from VMware is still hanging around. For Linux, you can check running processes using commands like `ps aux | grep vmware` to see if anything is still active and, if needed, kill those processes.
Oh, and don’t forget about snapshots! If you created a snapshot of your VM before installing VMware Tools or before starting the uninstallation, keep that in mind. It could come in handy if you need to revert to a previous state for any reason. It's always good to have those options available.
So, when it comes down to it, uninstalling VMware Tools isn't a huge deal once you have the steps worked out in your mind. Just remember to pay attention to the little details, and don't hesitate to ask for help if you get stuck. These experiences can be a bit frustrating, but they also teach you so much along the way. And that’s what it’s all about, right? Learning as you go!
