We experienced the following issue during a Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 installation in our test environment – we shut down the virtual machine instance forcefully while using VMware Player.

After we shut the Virtual Machine down, we tried to start the Virtual Machine again – after which we received the following error message: “VMware player cannot open disk … Failed to lock the file”.

Puzzled, we inspected the directory where the Virtual Machine was stored and noticed that along with the VMX and VMDK files, there were several LCK files that had appeared – these are lock files used by VMware to lock the virtual disks.

We removed each of the folders ( each containing one 1kb LCK file ) and tried to start the Virtual Machine again – this time the Virtual Machine booted up fine.

Another example of how a forceful shutdown should not be carried out unless absolutely necessary! 🙂

If you’re experiencing issues with your VMware or Virtual Environment and the above does not resolve your issue – feel free to contact us now on 0818 288 500.