VMware Tools upgrade error

Situation:-
1. You try to upgrade VMware tools on a virtual machine using "Interactive Tools Upgrade" or "Automatic Tools Upgrade" method and are unable to upgrade VMware Tools version, or
2. You try to upgrade VMware tools on a virtual machine installed on ESXi 5.0 or later, but deployed from a template built on VM Version 7
3. Even after upgrading the VM Version to 8, the VMware Tools installation fails.

And you get the following error:-

"The operation is not allowed in the current state".

4. You are unable to manually uninstall the older version of VMware tools from the Control Panel: Programs and Features or Add/Remove programs.

Problem:-
This problem occurs because the previous version of VMware Tools was not fully removed.

Resolution:-

The steps mentioned below will show how to perform a clean removal of VMware Tool components so that the newer version can be installed without issues.

Before starting the activity:-

• Take a backup of the virtual machine's registry.
• Take a backup/snapshot of the virtual machine.

Windows Server 2008 R2 virtual machines

1. Login to the virtual machine and open the Registry editor (regedit).
2. If the following keys exist, then please delete them :
• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Features\C2A6F2EFE6910124C940B2B12CF170FE
• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Products\C2A6F2EFE6910124C940B2B12CF170FE
• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{D86ADE52-C4D9-4B98-AA0D-9B0C7F1EBBC8}
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\C2A6F2EFE6910124C940B2B12CF170FE
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{FE2F6A2C-196E-4210-9C04-2B1BC21F07EF}

Windows 2003 virtual machines

1. Login to the virtual machine and open the Registry editor (regedit).
2. If the following keys exist, then please delete them :
• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Features\005014B32081E884E91FB41199E24004
• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Products\005014B32081E884E91FB41199E24004
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Installer\Features\005014B32081E884E91FB41199E24004
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Installer\Products\005014B32081E884E91FB41199E24004
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\0B150AC107B12D11A9DD0006794C4E25
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{3B410500-1802-488E-9EF1-4B11992E0440}
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\VMware, Inc.
3. Some services might need to be removed manually from the registry. Delete these as well if they exist:
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\VMTools
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\VMUpgradeHelper
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\VMware Physical Disk Helper Service
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\vmvss

After you've performed the above steps, search through the registry and delete all vmware entries.

PS: On virtual machines which have some or the other VMware software installed (such as vCenter server, etc) DO NOT delete the other VMware related entries from the registry.