Vmware Server Won't Install on 2003 R2 x64

October 24, 2008

I got the error "Setup cannot continue. The Microsoft Runtime DLL installer failed to complete installation".

I read another bloggers suggestion to download the redistributable directly from Microsoft, which almost helped me, but it installed sucessfully, no help there.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=EB4EBE2D-33C0-4A47-9DD4-B9A6D7BD44DA&displaylang=en

However, it gave me an idea, I run the setup, and when the error was on my screen (and before I clicked ok) I could go to my %temp% directory and try to run the vcredist_x64.exe file manually, it gave the error that it couldn't write to D: drive, not enough space. Well, I have a CD-ROM drive in D:, so that doesn't suprise me alot.

I simply swapped my D: and E: drives and fixed my issue, now it installed like a champ, I know this is a workaround, not a fix, but if it happens again I know where to start.

3 comments

Unknown February 13, 2009

Great tip. I was running into the same problem with VMware server 2.0 on W2K3-R2 32-bit. I just ran VMware Server.msi from %temp% directory before clicking on the OK on the original MS MSI installer window.

Anonymous June 7, 2009

This is a very good post. I ended up opening the %TEMP% folder and navigating to the temporary VMWARE folder "C:\DOCUME~1\Administrator\Local Settings\Temp\{AF08C71F-F822-4416-87A9-2BBF5A8A5F12}~setup" and running the direct installer "VMware Server". That worked really well

Niall March 9, 2010

very useful indeed. For some reason the domain policy on our machines now forbids the installation of the visual c++ redistributable (it didnt last year), but running the .msi for vmware itself from the temp folder works fine.