irql_not_less_or_equal Uninstall VMWare

on 2020-03-06 06:19:00 EST

I was recently attempting to update my PC to the latest version of Windows. I was already using Windows 10 build 1803. I could not upgrade because my system had an old copy of VMWare Workstation 7. I also could not uninstall Workstation because the uninstaller would exit stating that it was only supported on Windows XP or newer. Uninstalling VMWare manually also caused me issues: anytime I disabled or uninstalled the VMWare network adapters, my computer would blue screen of death with the error: irql_not_less_or_equal

The solution was to boot the PC in safe mode. Once in safe mode, I was able to successfully remove those two adapters. I was never able to remove all of the /driver/.sys files requested (for USB and keyboard) because they were in use. I couldn't locate the process using them with procexp either. I ultimately skipped those dlls that wouldnt budge, finished the manual uninstall, and then finally update to the latest Windows successfully.