VMware Workstation 14 upgrade failed to start the VMware Authorization Service

I recently upgraded my VMware Workstation to 14.1.2 build-8497320 so it was fully supported on the latest build of Windows 10. When attempting to power on a VM after the upgrade and reboot I received the following error: “VMware Workstation failed to start the VMware Authorization Service” After doing a quick Google (that’s how we fix most problems right?) people are saying uninstall and reinstall and clear everything out.

A quick check in the event log and we can see the following error: “Version mismatch with vmmon driver: expecting 333.0, got 308.0

And the VMware Authorisation Service is indeed stopped and fails to start

Now at this moment in time I am in full panic mode as most of my lab VM’s are based off template VM’s and linked clones. I have visions of uninstalling, reinstalling and not being able to get everything working again. Luckily the fix is quite simple – just run a repair and you will be good to go