Vmware Client Failed To Install Hcmon Driver Windows 10

When you install VMware Tools, a virtual SVGA driver replaces the default VGA driver, which allows for only 640 X 480 resolution and 16-color graphics. On Windows guest operating systems whose operating system is Windows Vista or later, the VMware SVGA 3D (Microsoft - WDDM) driver is installed. VMware Remote Console on Windows 10 gives ‘Failed to install the hcmon driver’. I did not have the vSphere client installed and I received the message on. In vSphere 6.5 and some simultaneous updates to earlier versions, VMware moved away from NPAPI (since Google is set on killing it) and instead introduced two new consoles, the HTML5 browser console which is quite frankly horrible (especially without VMTools), as well as a new 'thick' console that installs on the client machine called VMware.

Vmware Client Failed To Install Hcmon Driver Windows 10 Pro

I tried the install the most recent version of VMRC which can be found here and I got this error message during the installation:

Vmware client failed to install hcmon driver windows 10 pro

I found the KB2130850 which mentioned that I should uninstall all vSphere Client instances, install VMRC and reinstall all vSphere Client instances. Unfortunately this was not the solution. I have then uninstalled the Horizon View Client too to be on the safe side. Again this was also not the solution.

I have then checked the vminst.log which can be found in the %TEMP% folder and saw the following error messages:

VNLCopyFileToSystemDir: Copying ‘C:Program Files (x86)Common FilesVMwareUSBhcmon.sys’ to ‘C:Windowssystem32drivershcmon.sys’
VNLGetLocalizedString: Failed to allocate a localized string 0x00000020: 317
VNLCopyFileToSystemDir: Failed to copy file: “C:Windowssystem32drivershcmon.sys”. (null) [32]
VNL_InstallHcmon: Failed to create service for hcmon driver.

This looked like that there are not sufficient permissions to copy the hcmon.sys to the destination folder, although the installer told me that he is using elevated permissions:

Because you haven’t “Run as Administrator” for msi packages I used an elevated cmd prompt to start the msi with Administrator permissions and lo and behold VMRC was installed without problems. There are 2 possibilities from my point of view why this happened.

Vmware Client Failed To Install Hcmon Driver Windows 10 64-bit

Install
  1. The elevation process of setups was little bit changed in Windows 10
  2. The hcmon.sys file was already there and the elevated permission was to less to replace it.
Vmware

I did a quick check about these possibilities and it was 2. When there is an existing hcmon.sys (from vSphere Client), VMRC installer can’t replace it even if the installer gets elevated for installation. The only possibility was to start the installer as Administrator to get the hcmon.sys in the C:WindowsSystem32 directory replaced.

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