Hi John,
I don't have a solution, but I do have total empathy with Mark (original post) - I too have the same problem...
I did manage to get the vCenter Converter Standalone installed originally, and it took a snapshot of my Windows 7 machine no problem. But when I tried to take a subsequent snapshot, I got an error saying that it couldn't identify the machine properly (or something along those lines). Therefore, I decided to uninstall the vCenter Converter Standalone in the correct & clean manner, and re-install it. However, the re-install just will not work because I also get the 'Error 29163.Could not copy file' in relation to the 'converter-client.xml' file.
Come on please VMWare - you must have a solution to this straightforward problem? My money is on it being a permissions issue.
Ian.