VMware – This Virtual Machine Appears To Be In Use

KB ID 0000959 

Problem

I wanted to give a copy of a VM to a colleague, so I removed all the snapshots, and cloned one of my test VM’s. When I went to power on the original this happened;

Virtual machine in use

The virtual machine appears to be in use.

If this virtual machine is not in use press the “Take Ownership” button to obtain ownership of it. Otherwise press the “Cancel” button to avoid damaging it.

Configuration file: {path-to-vmx-file}

And when I attempted to ‘Take Ownership’ of the machine, that failed also;

Take ownership of tis virtual machine failed

Could not open virtual machine: {path-to-vmx-file}
Taking ownership of this virtual machine failed.
The virtual machine is in use by an application on your host computer.
Configuration file: {path-to-vmx-file}

Solution

I knew it was not in use, as there was only me using my laptop. So I figured VMware had some files ‘locked’. Navigate to the folder that holds the VM’s files, (Note: The path is on the error message above).

VMware lock files.

Locate any folders that have a .lck extension appended to their name (as above), and move them to another folder. Then attempt to power on your VM.

Related Articles, References, Credits, or External Links

NA

Author: Migrated

Share This Post On