Last Updated on January 7, 2017
I was installing VMware Workstation 12 Pro yesterday and I kept getting this “Failed to install hcmon driver” error at the very end of the install, and each time it would undo the install and I’d be left with nothing.
After a few Google searches I found this page in the VMware Knowledge Base and learned the problem was pretty stupid, but easy to fix.
See, I also manage a 32-core 128gb ram server running VMware ESXi 6 in my office and in order to connect to that VMware host I use the VMWare vSphere client. Apparently the vSphere client conflicts with the VMware Workstation installation so I had to uninstall it.
After removing the vSphere client I no longer got the “Failed to install hcmon driver” error while installing VMware Workstation 12.
Once I installed Workstation, the vSphere Client reinstalled perfectly fine.
Also, remember to restart your machine after installs and uninstalls to avoid other issues that can arise from not restarting!
John started JSnowCreations as a place to post random tech guides and product reviews. However, while shopping for his daughter’s first “big girl” bed in 2019 he learned about the hidden dangers of fiberglass in mattresses. Since then, John has made it his mission to expose as much hidden fiberglass in mattresses as possible. His ultimate goal is federal regulations that ban fiberglass from being used in mattresses, or at least a law that require it to be listed in the material tags.
I ran into this problem after accidentally canceling an install of VMWare Player. During the rollback VMWare had left behind a service.
I went into services, found the vmware service, found its properties with a right click, located service’s binary file and deleted the whole directory. After a reboot I was able to install Player.