Thank you for this thread! I had the same problem when I let VMware Workstation do an upgrade to 9.0.2 (from 9.0.1). VMware does not even have this error (29144) in its KB!
Any suggestions about what I do to perform a download-upgrade - it did not ask me to roboot after it automatically uninstalled 9.0.1 - it just went on installing 9.0.2 until the 29144 error - thus disabling my VMware. I rebooted to reinstall 9.0.1. It is asking me again to do an upgrade - I am deferring it of course.
Fred