Cannot install vmware-tools: A previous installation of VMware Tools has been detected

I encounter this error:

The path /usr/src/linux/include is not an existing directory.

Hi there are still issues as listed below. Please advise

ronald@ronald-virtual-machine:~/Desktop/vmware tools/vmware-tools-distrib$ sudo ./vmware-install.pl
[sudo] password for ronald:
A previous installation of VMware Tools has been detected.

The previous installation was made by the tar installer (version 4).

Keeping the tar4 installer database format.

You have a version of VMware Tools installed. Continuing this install will 
first uninstall the currently installed version. 
Do you wish to continue? (yes/no) [yes]

Error: Unable to execute "/usr/bin/vmware-uninstall-tools.pl.

Uninstall failed. Please correct the failure and re run the install.

Execution aborted.

ronald@ronald-virtual-machine:~/Desktop/vmware tools/vmware-tools-distrib$ `chmod +x /usr/bin/vmware-uninstall-tools.pl`

chmod: cannot access `/usr/bin/vmware-uninstall-tools.pl': No such file or directory

Solution 1:

This also happened to me when I interrupted vmware tools upgrade. it seems, the first thing the upgrade does is delete all files in the system. the uninstall script being the first one and that's why you can't find it.

I don't understand why the installation gets interrupted+ if the uninstall script is not found (for me, that's just a bad decision), but the mounted device comes with its own script which you can use to delete everything. a simple

locate vmware-uninstall

outputed its location and for me it was in

/home/my_username/Desktop/vmware-tools-distrib/bin/vmware-uninstall-tools.pl

For you, the only difference should be ronald instead of *my_username*. Hope that helps.

Solution 2:

Run sudo rm -R /etc/vmware OR sudo rm -R /etc/vmware-tools

this will remove settings and you can install new one.

Solution 3:

you should install the header first

apt-get install linux-headers-2.6.10-5-386(name of your kernel)

and then enter on the vmware installation:

/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.10-5-386/include

It should help

Solution 4:

It appears that vmware is trying to uninstall the older version before installing the newer one, but is failing to do so.

I would manually uninstall the old version of vmware tools by typing the following command into the terminal:
```
sudo apt-get remove vmware
```

Note: the word "vmware" is just a guess as to what the name of this package is. If this gives you an error like "Unable to locate package" then try changing the word vmware to whatever you think the package name is.

Once vmware is unstalled, try installing the newer package.

Solution 5:

What worked for me was the last answer provided in this thread by Amir Arian -- so simple and yet I could not find it easily elsewhere.

If you followed VMware instructions, you extracted the VMware tools to /tmp. So, you should have /tmp/vmware-tools-distrib. Inside that you have a bin directory and there is the vmware-uninstall-tools.pl file.

cp /tmp/vmware-tools-distrib/bin/vmware-uninstall-tools.pl /usr/bin/

Then run the installer once more:

/tmp/vmware-tools-distrib/vmware-install.pl

It will come back with an error that might look like this:

"Can't exec "/etc/vmware-caf/pme/install/preupgrade.sh": No such file or directory at /usr/bin/vmware-uninstall-tools.pl line 4115."

However, the installer will keep working and eventually proceed to the installation phase.