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VMWare tools not installing on Ubuntu 12.04. I'm using Chef to manage the installation, but the Apt commands fail if run manually.

I'm using the VMWare tool Debian repo. Example:

$ cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/vmware-tools-source.list
deb http://packages.vmware.com/tools/esx/5.0u2/ubuntu precise main

When trying to install, most packages seem to go ok, but one, "vmware-tools-foundation", does not.

Example:

$ apt-get -q -y install vmware-tools-esx-nox=8.6.10-1.precise 
Reading package lists...
Building dependency tree...
Reading state information...
You might want to run 'apt-get -f install' to correct these:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 vmware-tools-esx-kmods-3.2.0-23-generic : Depends: vmware-tools-foundation (>= 8.6.10) but it is not going to be installed
 vmware-tools-esx-nox : Depends: ...snip list of deps...
E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution).
$ apt-get -f install
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Correcting dependencies... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  vmware-tools-foundation
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  vmware-tools-foundation
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 118 not upgraded.
7 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0 B/5,886 B of archives.
After this operation, 86.0 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
(Reading database ... 103499 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking vmware-tools-foundation (from .../vmware-tools-foundation_8.6.10-1.precise_all.deb) ...

VMware Tools cannot install because it appears that another installation of
VMware Tools is already present. Please remove the previous installation and
then attempt to install this copy of VMware Tools again.

dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/vmware-tools-foundation_8.6.10-1.precise_all.deb (--unpack):
 subprocess new pre-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 /var/cache/apt/archives/vmware-tools-foundation_8.6.10-1.precise_all.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

The key seems to be this error: "VMware Tools cannot install because it appears that another installation of VMware Tools is already present. Please remove the previous installation and then attempt to install this copy of VMware Tools again."

However, I've tryed removing and purging and can't seem to "trick" VMWare tools into thinking the packages are gone. Apt thinks they are gone.

Is there some service/file/cache/lock left that VMWare tools sees that makes it think that VMWare tools are still installed?

I've googled and googled but there is no answer to this question with my particular circumstances on the interwebs. VMWare's documentation of this error is minimal.

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1 Answer 1

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4

I had the same problem and have worked out a solution that works for me.

Chapter two of the VMWare tools install guide reminds us to uninstall previous versions of VMWare stuff - either open or not. I did the apt-get but found nothing was installed, so moved on.

As it happened, I'd installed VMWare Tools via the installer script rather than apt get.

Running 

sudo vmware-uninstall-tools.pl
sudo apt-get install vmware-tools-foundation vmware-tools-esx

was sufficient for things to start working.

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  • That worked! I just had to uninstall first, e.g., apt-get remove open-vm-tools and then reinstall, e.g., apt-get install open-vm-tools.
    – Ben Johnson
    Mar 19, 2016 at 20:19

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