vSphere: The Virtual Machine is installing VMware Tools and Cannot Initiate a Migration Operation

After upgrading a large group Virtual Machines  to the latest build of VMware Tools. I got an error when I started a vMotion task on a some VMs.

The warning is pretty clear but I couldn’t cancel the VMware Tools wizard from the vSphere client. After a short search on Google I found a post from Bob Plankers

The solution is quite simple. Logon to the ESX host where the VM is running on and run the following command:

/usr/bin/vmware-cmd -l

Now you get a list of all the registered VMs on that host. Copy the full path of the vmx from the VM you want to migrate with vMotion. Now run the vmware-cmd pathtovmx getid command:

/usr/bin/vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/datastore-name/vm-folder/vmx-file.vmx getid

The latest step is to run the following command. Just replace the idnumber with number you get with the previous command:

/usr/bin/vmware-vim-cmd vmsvc/tools.cancelinstall idnumber

Now you are able to migrate the VM with vMotion again.

Source

http://lonesysadmin.net/2009/12/11/how-to-cancel-a-stuck-vmware-tools-install-from-the-esx-cli/