hcmon.sys BSOD Installing Workstation

[baronfunke420]

Hello - I have (like many others) tried to install Workstation Pro on my Windows 11 25H2 instance, but no matter what I do I get a BSOD referencing hcmon.sys.  I have removed all reference to Hyper-V (installer confirms), don't have Splashtop installed, manually deleted the hcmon.sys file, and still get the BSOD (I did notice the installer copies the hcmon.sys file into the drivers folder again).  I get the same error whether I try v17 or 25H2 of Workstation.

Needless to say VirtualBox is not cutting it, and I'd like to use Workstation again, but can't get it to install at all.  Any help would be welcome (minidump attached).

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Attachment(s)

010926-18343-01.dmp   6.95 MB 1 version

[Dingyan Li]

Can you reproduce the issue with 25H2 build and try to collect a bigger dump file? I tried to parse the small dump file assuming you are using 25H2, but windbg cannot show the code line or detailed stack information. By the way, it seems like a very specific issue on your side, I suspect that some special softwares installed on the same machine impact the workflow hcmon.sys.

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[baronfunke420]

Sure, I kept all the failed installer files where they are after the last failed install attempt; which logs would you like to see?

I was able to delete hcmon.sys and rebooted just in case, but the file did not reappear - it only showed up when I ran the Workstation installer (25H2).  This leads me to believe:

1. The file is not being used by any other software
2. The installer has the appropriate permissions to the folder (Windows\System32\drivers)

To be clear, I'm only using the 25H2 installer at this point - I wouldn't want to use v17 if I could use 25H2, I just mentioned it because v17 has the same issue with Windows 11 25H2.

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[baronfunke420]

Sure - I still have all the remnants of my previous 25H2 install.  What logs would you like?

To be clear, I have not been working with v17 at all - I only mentioned it because it had the same issues.

I will try reinstalling Windows over the weekend as well, and try to install Workstation first.

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[ymagalif]

baronfunke420,

Try to boot into Safe Mode, uninstall VMware Workstation, and remove the hcmon driver so it can't load by deleting the hcmon service/registry entry and any hcmon.sys copies. Then purge any leftover VMware/hcmon driver packages from the Windows driver store with pnputil, reboot, temporarily disable Memory Integrity (Core Isolation), and install the newest Workstation Pro build as Administrator.

Sincerely,

Yury Magalif

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[baronfunke420]

I ended up reinstalling Windows and installed Workstation first (to remove any other conflicts).  It worked, but I was forced to use the Hyper-V translation setup - whenever I remove/disable Hyper-V from the machine (and to be clear, I'm not installing anything supplemental to a bare Windows 11 install) it will stop working.

I will test out the new install and workflow to see if I can figure out where it was breaking down before.

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