In the last couple of days I have noticed several folks comment on a new check that has been put in place in vSphere 5.5 which prevents a user from installing the vSphere C# Client onto a Windows Domain Controller system. If you try to install the vSphere C# Client on a Domain Controller system, you will get the following error message:
It is generally not recommended to install additional software on a Windows Domain Controller and I suspect this check was put in place to deter users from installing additional software, including VMware software onto a Domain Controller system. However, for a development environment or home lab, you may want to consolidate multiple applications onto a single system and help reduce the number of Windows systems that you may need to deploy. Luckily there is a way to by-pass this check and I am actually glad one exists as this is something I will need while building out some of internal labs.
Disclaimer: This is not officially supported by VMware, please use at your own risk.
To by-pass the check, you will need to launch the vSphere C# Client install from the command-line and pass in the following arguments:
VMware-viclient.exe /v "SKIP_OS_CHECKS=1"
Now the installer should allow you to proceed with the vSphere C# Client installation.
I found that I had to run it with VMware-viclient.exe /VSKIP_OS_CHECKS="1"
This can also be done by adding the /v arguments in the Target field of the shortcut that launches the vSphere Client. Might save a little time if you don't want to open a command prompt every time you want to launch a client.