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I've been playing with the Microsoft Windows 8.1 Preview (aka Windows Blue) and had problems installing VMware's vSphere Client.  After clicking "I agree", the install window disappeared, providing no helpful information as to why it failed.  I hate the vSphere web client, and would much rather use the thick client to manage my home lab ESXi 5.1 environment. 

The cause of issue is that the .NET framework v3.5 is not installed in Windows 8 by default, and is a required component for the vSphere client.  I assume that the redistributable is packaged with the vSphere client installer, but it doesn't work in Windows 8.1. 

The .NET Framework v3.5 is easy to install, just issue the following command from an elevated/administrator command prompt:

Dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:NetFx3 /All /Source:F:\sources\sxs /LimitAccess

(replace F:\ with the DVD drive where your Windows 8.1 is located.  If your DVD drive is as slow as mine, just copy the ISO to your hard drive, mount it with daemon-tools, and use that location instead.)

After that, the vSphere client happily installed and I'm off to play with Windows 8.1 now.