How to Remove VMware Workstation from Windows 10 Securely

Why uninstall VMware Workstation from Windows 10

VMware Workstation is the Type 2 hypervisors also known as hosted hypervisors, because they are installed on existing OSs, and rely on them for virtualization and resource management. VMware Workstation provides the flexibility to simulate a complete network environment on a single physical machine, while running different operating systems, developing, testing, and deploying new applications on a single desktop.

VMware Workstation Pro might offer you a lot of benefits, but in some cases you might want to uninstall it from your computer. For instance:

• Your PC does not meet the minimum PC requirements for using VMware Workstation, so while VMware is running in the background, your machine will be extremely slow.
• You want to update your version of VMware Workstation to a higher version, so you first need to uninstall the older version.
• You encountered unforeseen errors such as “VMware can not connect to a virtual machine, some users uninstall VMware.” This may be caused by Internet connection, insufficient space of hard drive, etc. In order to fix it, you could try to re-install VMware Workstation.

Whatever the reason is, it turns out that the removal of VMware Workstation is a stressful task. This article will guide you to uninstall Workstation from Windows 10/11 properly and securely.

How to remove VMware Workstation from Windows 10

If you access Windows 10 Apps and Features or Control Panel to uninstall, you will find that the uninstall button is grayed out and unclickable. Therefore, in this part, I will show you how to effectively remove and uninstall VMware Workstation 15 from Windows 10 or 11 PC.

Way 1. Remove VMware Workstation from Windows 10 through Apps & features

1. Open Settings by pressing Windows Key + I. Then select Apps on Windows 10.

Tips: On Windows 11, click Apps from the left-hand side pane and select Installed apps.

2. Locate and right-click on VMware Workstation under the Apps & features menu then click Modify. You will find out that the Uninstall option is greyed out.

Tips: You can also open Control Panel and navigate to Programs >> right-click VMware Workstation >> Changes to uninstall VMware Workstation.

3. Click Next to open a new wizard with 3 options: Change, Repair and Remove. Then choose Remove.

4. Uncheck the following 2 box to remove the configuration files of VMware Workstation. Click Remove >> Finish to complete the process to uninstall VMware Workstation from Windows 10.

This is how you can remove VMware Workstation from Windows 10/11. You can remove it either through Settings or Console Pane.

Does it remove all my VMs when uninstalling Workstation

Many users worry whether it will delete the virtual machines while deleting or upgrading VMware Workstation. Theoretically, it will remain the existing virtual machines. However, it is recommended that you back up your virtual machines before such a major operation. In addition to this, it is also necessary for you to back up VMs regularly in your daily activities.

When running a virtual machine, you will find that your computer is obviously slowed down, sometimes even lagging for long periods of time. It’s possible to result in a system crash to loss of all your computer data. So, you should back up Workstation as well as your computers to protect data from threats.

Here, I will introduce a centralized backup software to protect your important data comprehensive.

Backup virtual machine and physical machine securely

AOMEI Centralized Backupper is a specialized backup software, which allows you to create a backup task for multiple Windows computers on the network from a central management console. With it, you can create System Backup, Disk Backup, Partition Backup, File Backup and SQL Server Backup for all the clients via simple clicks.

To create Windows client backup, you need to install AOMEI Centralized Backupper on the central management computer first, here's a detailed guide to walk you through the installation and backup process.

First, you can download the 30-day free trial to get started:

After installation, you can launch it and find all the available Windows clients on the Computers tab. Then, click Install client program to install the Agent setup on the computers you want to manage.

There are 2 ways provided, manually or remotely. If you choose the former, then you still need to Request Control over them. After confirmation, all these client computers will be under your control, and you can get started to create centralized backup task.

Create backup tasks for multiple Windows computers

You can perform the following steps to backup your important data before removing VMware Workstation from Windows 10.

1. Launch the backup software, switch to Tasks tab and choose New Task, all the backup options are listed here. Select System Backup to create a new backup task.

2. You will then be taken to the 3-step backup screen.

In Step 1, click + Add Computers and select the correct IP of the virtual or physical machines you want to backup.

In Step 2, select a location as the destination path. You can click Add Storage in the prompt window to add a Share or NAS Device as a storage end.

Then set up backup settings, schedule backup or backup retention policy.

Settings: Here you can manage backup task, enable encryption for backup, set compression level or intelligent sector etc.

Schedule: It enables you to set up automatic backup on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. In Advanced tab, you can also choose full/incremental/differential backup.

Scheme: When the data to be backed up is large, you can create a retention policy to auto delete old backups.

3. Click Start Backup. Here you can choose Only create the task or Create and execute tasks.

Wait for a while and your backup will be completed. Then, you can restore system in the event of a disaster, such as, system crash, hard disk failure, virus attack, etc.

Conclusion

VMware Workstation installed in Windows 10 allows you to run different virtual machines. However, when it is running in the background silently, you may be upset that Windows 10 physical machine is extremely slow. So in this article, I introduced how to remove VMware Workstation from Windows 10 or 11. The whole process is simple and efficient for you to uninstall the VMware Workstation.