What do I do when installing VMTools on Windows returns a "There is a problem with this Windows Installer package. A program run as part of the setup did not finish as expected Contact your support personnel or package vendor" prompt?

Cause

Residual files from a previously installed older version of VMTools remain on the virtual machine. Clean up the installation files before reinstalling.

Solution

1. Try the following steps to resolve the issue:

2. Delete the registry keys and rebuild the MSDTC service (Distributed Transaction Coordinator). Open a command prompt as Administrator and run the following commands:

   reg delete HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSDTC /f
   reg delete HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSDTC /f
   reg delete HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CID /f
   net stop msdtc
   msdtc -uninstall
   msdtc -install

3. Restart the virtual machine.

4. Run the following commands in the command prompt to uninstall the older version of QGA:

   msiexec /a "c:\Program Files\GuestTools\qemu-ga.msi" targetdir="c:\Program Files"
   "c:\Program Files\QEMU Guest Agent\Qemu-ga\qemu-ga.exe" -s vss-uninstall

5. Reinstall VMTools.