Virtual Machine Console in vCenter is Opened by VMware Workstation

If you have VMware Workstation and VMware Remote Console both installed on Windows 10 you may see vCenter virtual machine console in vSphere Web Client is opened by VMware Workstation instead of VMware Remote  Console. If you see same case your VMware Remote Console may be hijacked. I call it “hijack” since there is no easy way to revert it back.

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There is only one article I found in internet talks about same issue. VMware Workstation 12 Hijacks VMware Remote Console. I tried the way but somehow it doesn’t work on my computer. Probably I’m Windows 10. So I dig into it a little bit, found following workaround eventually.

  1. Find where is vmrc.exe of VMware Remote Console installed. In my case it’s located in C:Program Files (x86)VMwareVMware Remote Consolevmrc.exe.
  2. Run regedit to open registry editor.
  3. Go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTvmrc change the value of key DefaultIcon to “C:Program Files (x86)VMwareVMware Remote Consolevmrc.exe” “%1”.
  4. Go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTvmrcshellopen change the value of key command to “C:Program Files (x86)VMwareVMware Remote Consolevmrc.exe”,0.

Note: You must only change the file path but do not modify any other parameters in the keys.

Now try open the console again.

If you installed VMware Workstation, VMware Remote Console, VMware vSphere Client and VMware Client Integration Plug-in…or these staffs just like me. Then you may have a high chance see the problem. VMware requires a specific order to install these applications on same computer. The order is VMware Remote Console → VMware Workstation → VMware vSphere Client → VMware Client Integration Plug-in。Please refer VMware KB Installing the VMware Remote Console fails with the error: VMInstallHcmon – Failed to install hcmon driver. (2130850) for detail.