Workstation 14 Upgrade – Authorization Service error 6000009
My main PC was recently updated to the Windows 10 Fall Creator (1709) release. So I thought it was a good time for a VMware Workstation 14 upgrade. The reason for version 14 was that it supports Windows 10 Creator release. For more information see the release notes here. The upgrade went smooth as always but when I tried to start a Virtual Machine I got the following error message:
VMware Workstation failed to start the VMware Authorization Service. You can try manually starting the VMware Authorization Service. If this problem persists, contact VMware support.
I search for the VMware Authorization Services under services and tried to start it manually, but also with no success. I checked the Windows Application and Systems logs and found this:
Application Log
Source vmauthd – Version mismatch with vmmon driver: expecting 329.0, got 308.0.
System Log
The VMware Authorization Service service terminated with the following service-specific error:
%%6000009
I also check the VMware communities and found a hint which states that the vmmon driver is implemented through the vmx86.sys file located under C:\Windows\System32\drivers\. I checked the file details and found this:
As you can see the file was not updated during the Workstation 14 upgrade. That now the reason why the VMware Authorization Service can’t start.
How to fix this?
This problem was easy to fix. Follow the following steps:
- Configure vmx86.sys to not load during windows boot. To do this use either SysInternals Autoruns (uncheck vmx86 under Drivers) or Registry Editor.
- Reboot Windows.
- After the reboot rename vmx86.sys under C:\Windows\System32\drivers\ to vmx86.sys_old (or whatever you prefere).
- Run a VMware Workstation Repair Installation
- After another reboot check again the vmx86.sys which should look like this
I hope this will help everybody who also encounter this problem.
thanks a lot, you saved my life 🙂
You’re welcome! 🙂 Thanks god I wasn’t the only person! 🙂
Great post, it works flawessly
You are a legend. This worked so well, and rescued me from otherwise going crazy at our IT department.
Wouldn’t call myself a legend! 🙂 But happy that it worked.
Manfred, If you wouldn’t call yourself a legend, then I wouldn’t dream to either.
Having said that, this worked great and the VM I need to build before a flight to China on Sunday is booting as I type. So, thank you.
Andrew
P.S. You’re a legend.
Worked with the Autoruns in step1 for me. My only question is was I supposed to download a fresh installer at step 4 or is there supposed to something lying around in some directory already?
Hi Greg. No you can use the one you downloaded already.
Thank you so much !! Its a correct solution and BUG in Vmware installer.
Thanks Manfred! This worked. Upgrading from 14.1.1 to 14.1.2 ran into this problem. The replaced vmx.sys had a create date of 8/8/2017.
Thanks! More kudos. Details made it easy to recover from this.
Just as Len McWilliams, I ran into this problem while upgrading from 14.1.1 to 14.1.2 ran into this problem. This solved it. Thanks a lot!
Thank you! You saved the day for me too!
Crazy, this worked for vmware workstation 15.1! You’d think they would have fixed it by now! Thank you!
Excellent explanation and pointers to resolution Manfred. Thank you. My problem was with VMWare Player 15 and all I needed to do was run step 4 after downloading the latest version.
Thank you so much for this. Super helpful.
Thanks, worked for update 15.5 => 15.5.2
Holy crap, thank you
This worked! Thanks a lot 🙂
thanks so much, this issue followed me for some version changes and was annoying again and again
Perfect! Thanks a lot!
It work !, thank you so much.