Q. How do I resolve the error message "The virtual machine is installed VMware Tools and cannot initiate a migration operation"?

A. Sometimes you may attempt to vMotion an ESX 4.x virtual machine (VM) and receive the error message The virtual machine is installed VMware Tools and cannot initiate a migration operation. This error message typically occurs after upgrading a VM's VMware Tools from one version to another.

In this case, VMware is unable to vMotion the VM because the VMware Tools installation has hung. In some situations, this hang situation cannot be cancelled from inside the vSphere client.

There's an alternate way to cancel the VMware Tools upgrade installation within the ESX Service Console using two commands. Prior to using these commands, you'll need to know the full path to the VMX file for the affected VM. With this information, enter the command

/usr/bin/vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/\{datastoreName\}/\{vmFolder\}/\{vmxFile\}.vmx getid

The result of this first command will be the ID number of the VM. Replace idNumber in the command below with this number.

/usr/bin/vmware-vim-cmd vmsvc/tools.cancelinstall idNumber

Running this command should cancel the VMware Tools installation and allow you to again vMotion the VM.

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