Removing VMware Player or workstation when the Hyper-V role is active

Blatantly stolen from Jussi Palo’s post here, and archived here.
All credit to the original author.

Challenge

Time to go all in with Windows 8 and migrate development environments to Hyper-V.

When you’re migrating from VMware to Hyper-V, and you happen to install Hyper-V before uninstalling VMware Workstation or Player, you will get warning that VMware cannot uninstall while the Hyper-V role is installed on the machine.

Solution

Modify the file C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware Player\Uninstaller\bootstrap.lua, or C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware Workstation\Uninstaller\bootstrap.lua using a text editor. You may have to run that editor as an administrator and then open the file from within it.

Comment out the line:

CheckForMSHyperV()

…with two dashes, leaving it as:

--CheckForMSHyperV()

Save the file, and attempt to uninstall VMware again.

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