VMware Tools 13.0.0.

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Table of Contents
Release Notes.......................................................................................................................................5
VMware Tools 13.0.0.0 Release Notes........................................................................................................................... 5
VMware Tools Administration...........................................................................................................12
Introduction to VMware Tools.......................................................................................................................................12
VMware Tools Services........................................................................................................................................... 12
VMware Tools Lifecycle Management..................................................................................................................... 13
VMware Tools Device Drivers...................................................................................................................................15
VMware User Process.............................................................................................................................................. 17
Open VM Tools......................................................................................................................................................... 17
Operating System Specific Packages for Linux Guest Operating Systems............................................................ 19
Installing VMware Tools.................................................................................................................................................19
Disable Access Protection from McAfee Antivirus Virus Scan Console...................................................................20
Enable Carbon Black Sensor using VMware Tools for Windows.............................................................................21
Enable Salt Minion Using VMware Tools................................................................................................................. 22
Manually Install VMware Tools on Windows............................................................................................................ 26
Manually Install VMware Tools on Windows Arm.................................................................................................... 27
Automatically Install VMware Tools on Multiple Windows Virtual Machines............................................................ 28
Specify VMware Tools Components in Silent Installation................................................................................ 28
Manually Install VMware Tools on Linux.................................................................................................................. 31
Manually Install VMware Tools on macOS..............................................................................................................33
Manually Install VMware Tools on Solaris...............................................................................................................35
Install Open VM Tools...............................................................................................................................................35
Upgrading VMware Tools............................................................................................................................................. 36
Configure Virtual Machines to Automatically Upgrade VMware Tools..................................................................... 37
Manually Upgrade VMware Tools in Virtual Machines............................................................................................. 38
Automatically Upgrade VMware Tools in Virtual Machines...................................................................................... 38
VMware Tools Installer Logging to Host...................................................................................................................39
Installing and Automatically Upgrading VMware Tools Component........................................................................ 41
Configuring VMware Tools Components.....................................................................................................................41
Using VMware Tools Configuration File................................................................................................................... 42
Configure Network Interface Information...........................................................................................................42
Exclude Specific File Systems from Quiesced Snapshots................................................................................43
Security Considerations to Configure VMware Tools.......................................................................................44
Using Custom VMware Tools Scripts....................................................................................................................... 45
Default VMware Tools Scripts.......................................................................................................................... 45
Custom VMware Tools Scripts for Windows..................................................................................................... 47

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Custom VMware Tools Scripts for Multiple OSs Except Windows....................................................................48

Disable VMware Tools Script........................................................................................................................... 48
Using VMware Tools Configuration Utility............................................................................................................... 49
Enable Periodic Time Synchronization.............................................................................................................. 49
Disable Periodic Time Synchronization............................................................................................................. 51
Connect or Disconnect a Virtual Device........................................................................................................... 51
View Virtual Machine Status Information...........................................................................................................52
Configure appInfo...............................................................................................................................................56
Configure ContainerInfo for Linux......................................................................................................................57
Configure Service Discovery............................................................................................................................. 58
Configure VMware Time Provider for Windows................................................................................................ 59
Use GuestStore..................................................................................................................................................59
Uninstalling VMware Tools.......................................................................................................................................... 63
Configuring Customer Experience Improvement Program....................................................................................... 63
VMware Customer Experience Improvement Program............................................................................................ 63
Join or Leave Customer Experience Improvement Program in vSphere Client....................................................... 63
VMware Tools Install and Upgrade Issues.................................................................................................................. 64
Install or Upgrade to VMware Tools 10.3.0.............................................................................................................. 64
Troubleshooting VMware Tools Components............................................................................................................. 65
Repair VMware Tools Components in Windows Virtual Machine........................................................................... 65
Start VMware User Process Manually.................................................................................................................... 65
VMware Tools FAQs....................................................................................................................................................... 66
Published Windows Drivers..............................................................................................................67
VMware Tools Drivers Published to Windows Update...............................................................................................67
Documentation Legal Notice............................................................................................................ 69

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Release Notes
Release notes include product enhancements and notices, bug fixes, and resolved issues.

VMware Tools 13.0.0.0 Release Notes

This document contains the following sections
• Introduction
• What's New
• Before You Begin
• Internationalization
• Product Support Notice
• End of Feature Support Notice
• Compatibility Notes
• Guest Operating System Customization Support
• Interoperability Matrix
• Installation and Upgrades for This Release
• Windows Guest Drivers Installed by VMware Tools
• Useful Links
• Resolved Issues
• Known Issues
• Known Issues from Previous Releases

Introduction

VMware Tools 13.0.0.0 | 17 JUN 2025 | Build No 24696409

Check for additions and updates to these release notes.

What's New
• Updated OpenSSL to version 3.0.15.
• Updated 7zip version to 24.09.
• Updated uriparser to version 0.9.7.

Before You Begin

• VMware Tools 13.0.0.0 supports the following guest operating systems:
– windows.iso supports the following 64-bit Windows versions - Windows 7 SP1 or Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
and later.
• The Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable package is a prerequisite for installing VMware Tools 13.0.0.0 for
Windows and ships with the VMware Tools 13.0.0.0 download package. While preparing a Windows guest for
installation, VMware Tools runs the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable Package installer, which checks for a
more recent version in the guest. If the guest already has a more recent version, the package does not install.
For a 64-bit Windows guest, the prerequisite versions are Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2022 Redistributable (x86)
version 14.40.33816 and Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2022 Redistributable (x64) version 14.40.33816.

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Refer to Microsoft's update KB2977003 for the latest supported Visual C++ downloads.
• Installing or upgrading to VMware Tools 13.0.0.0 is not supported for Windows versions that do not meet the
prerequisite. Customers should use or upgrade to VMware Tools 11.3.5 until they can update their Windows OS
to meet the prerequisites for VMware Tools 13.0.0.0.
• Windows OS level prerequisites
• Windows Server 2025
• Windows Server 2022
• Windows 11
• Windows Server 2019
• Windows Server 2016
• Windows 10
• Windows Server 2012 R2 with Microsoft's update KB2919355
• Windows 8.1 with Microsoft's update KB2919355
• Windows Server 2012
• Windows 8
• Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) with Microsoft's update KB4474419
• Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) with Microsoft's update KB4474419
– For windows.iso support for 32-bit Windows versions - Windows 7 SP1 or Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 and later,
refer to VMware Tools 12.5.2 Release Notes.
– windows.iso for Windows Arm supports Windows 11 Arm 64-bit and later.
• The prerequisite version for a Windows Arm guest is Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2022 Redistributable (Arm64)
version 14.40.33816. Refer to Microsoft's update KB2977003 for the latest supported Visual C++ downloads.
• For Windows Arm versions that do not meet the prerequisite, installing or upgrading to VMware Tools 13.0.0.0 is
not supported.
• Windows OS level prerequisites
• Windows 11 Arm
– For details on darwin.iso version, refer to VMware Tools 12.1.0 Release Notes.
– For details on linux.iso, refer to VMware Tools 10.3.26 Release Notes.
– For details on solaris.iso, refer to VMware Tools 10.3.10 Release Notes.
• VMware Tools ISO images are frozen for some end-of-life guest operating systems. Some ISO images are not
included with ESX in the tools-light VIB. For more details, see the VMware Tools Documentation page. All VMware
Tools ISO images are available for download from https://support.broadcom.com.
• VMware Tools for Windows: A 64-bit installer executable (.exe) file is available for download. This file is provided for
easier access and installation of VMware Tools in Windows guest operating systems.
• VMware Tools for Windows Arm: Installer executable (.exe) files are available for download.

Internationalization
VMware Tools 13.0.0.0 is available in the following languages:
• English
• French
• Japanese
• Spanish

Product Support Notice

• The following languages will no longer be supported:
– Italian, German, Brazilian Portuguese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, Simplified Chinese

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Impact:
– Users who have been using the deprecated languages will no longer receive updates or support in these
languages.
– All user interfaces, help documentation, and customer support will be available only in English or in the three
supported languages mentioned above.
• Starting with VMware Tools 12.5.0, VMware Tools ISO image releases only support 64-bit Windows versions.
• VMware Tools 12.4.7 was the last regular release for 32-bit Windows versions. For more information, see the VMware
Tools 12.5.2 Release Notes.
• VMware Tools 12.1.1 was the last regular release for Mac OS. Refer to KB 88698 for details.
• The Windows pre-Vista ISO image for VMware Tools is no longer packaged with ESX and is available for download
only. For download information, see the Product Download page.

End of Feature Support Notice

• VMware Tools 12.4.0 and later do not provide new driver versions for virtual machines running Windows 7 and
Windows Server 2008 R2 guest operating systems. For more information, see the "Windows Guest Drivers Installed by
VMware Tools" section below.
• VMware Tools 13.0.0.0 does not support virtual machines running 32-bit versions of Windows 7 SP1, Windows Server
2008 R2 SP1 and later guest operating systems.
• The Unity mode has been deprecated with VMware Tools 12.4.0 and later.
• VMware Tools ships PVSCSI floppy images and PVSCSI drivers in Tools ISO for OS installation on a PVSCSI disk
controller. The PVSCSI floppy images to support OS versions Vista, Server 2008, and Windows 7 are removed from
VMware Tools 12.1.0 and later releases.
• The Tar Tools (linux.iso) and OSPs shipped with VMware Tools 10.3.x release will continue to be supported. However,
releases after VMware Tools 10.3.5 only include critical and security fixes. No new features are provided in these types
of VMware Tools (Tar Tools and OSPs). Using open-vm-tools is recommended for the Linux distributions that provide
open-vm-tools packages. For more information about open-vm-tools, see KB 2073803. For information on VMware
Tools compatibility with guest operating systems, see KB 90203.
NOTE
For more information about the end of technical guidance, see https://support.broadcom.com.
You must have a profile at the Broadcom Support Portal to access the Product Lifecycle page.

Compatibility Notes
• Starting with VMware Tools version 10.2.0, Perl script-based VMware Tools installation for FreeBSD has been
discontinued. FreeBSD systems are supported only through the open-vm-tools packages directly available from
FreeBSD package repositories. FreeBSD packages for open-vm-tools 10.1.0 and later are available from FreeBSD
package repositories.

Guest Operating System Customization Support

The Guest OS Customization Support Matrix provides details about the guest operating systems that are supported for
customization.

Interoperability Matrix
The Broadcom Product Interoperability Matrix provides details about the compatibility of current and earlier versions of
VMware Products.

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Installation and Upgrades for This Release

VMware Tools can be downloaded from the Product Download page.
The steps to install VMware Tools vary depending on your VMware product and the guest operating system you have
installed. For general steps to install VMware Tools in most VMware products, see General VMware Tools installation
instructions (1014294).
To set up productLocker to point to the shared datastore, see KB 2004018.
This release provides packages to upgrade VMware Tools 11.2.5 or later deployments using GuestStore.
Install or upgrade to VMware Tools 13.0.0.0 and later that includes vmmouse , vmhgfs , or pvscsi drivers when the VM’s
system disk resides on a paravirtual SCSI controller will require a system restart. Depending on the system state, other
guest drivers might also require a system restart.
For specific instructions to install, upgrade, and configure VMware Tools, see the VMware Tools Documentation.

Windows Guest Drivers Installed by VMware Tools

VMware Tools 13.0.0.0 provides the following driver versions for Windows 8 (64-bit), Windows Server 2012 and later:

Drivers VMware Tools 13.0.0.0

Hardware Drivers
efifwfromhost.bin 1.0.0.2
pvscsi.sys 1.3.29.0
vmci.sys 9.8.30.0
vmmouse.sys 12.5.15.0
vmusbmouse.sys 12.5.15.0
vmxnet3.sys 1.9.20.0
vm3dmp.sys 9.17.09.0004
Software Drivers
vmhgfs.sys 11.0.49.0
vmmemctl.sys 7.5.10.0
vmrawdsk.sys 1.1.9.0
vnetWFP.sys 13.0.0.0
vsepflt.sys 13.0.0.0
vsock.sys 9.8.23.0
Security DLL
vmwsu.dll 2.5.2.0

VMware Tools 13.0.0.0 provides the following driver versions for Windows Arm:

Hardware Drivers VMware Tools 13.0.0.0

vmusbmouse.sys 12.5.15.0
vmxnet3.sys 1.9.20.0
vm3dmp.sys 9.17.09.0004

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Useful Links
• For more information about previous versions of VMware Tools, see KB 86165.
• For more information about VMware Tools compatibility with guest operating systems, see KB 90203.
• For more information about the guest operating systems support levels, see KB 2015161.

Resolved Issues

After October 25, 2024, with VMware Tools or open-vm-tools earlier than 13.0.0, the salt-minion component is not
installed or fails to install in a guest operating system through the VMware Component Manager
When you configure the salt-minion component in the present state, its last status is set to 102 (not installed) or 103
(installation failed), never reaching the installed state 100 .
• The VM advanced setting with the key "guestinfo./vmware.components.salt_minion.desiredstate" has
a value present .
• The VM advanced setting with the key "guestinfo.vmware.components.salt_minion.laststatus" has a value 102 or 103 .
The salt-minion component installs a log file as traces indicating failure to access the online salt repository on https://
repo.saltproject.io.
On Linux
The "vmware-svtminion.sh-install-*.log" file for the failed install shows a trace similar to:
<date+time> INFO: /usr/lib64/open-vm-tools/componentMgr/saltMinion/svtminion.sh:_curl_download attempting
download of file 'repo.json' <date+time> WARNING: /usr/lib64/open-vm-tools/componentMgr/saltMinion/svtmin-
ion.sh:_curl_download failed to download file 'repo.json' from 'https://repo.saltproject.io/salt/py3/onedir/
repo.json' on '0' attempt, retcode '6'
<date+time> WARNING: /usr/lib64/open-vm-tools/componentMgr/saltMinion/svtminion.sh:_curl_download failed to
download file 'repo.json' from 'https://repo.saltproject.io/salt/py3/onedir/repo.json' on '1' attempt, ret-
code '6'
<date+time> WARNING: /usr/lib64/open-vm-tools/componentMgr/saltMinion/svtminion.sh:_curl_download failed to
download file 'repo.json' from 'https://repo.saltproject.io/salt/py3/onedir/repo.json' on '2' attempt, ret-
code '6'
<date+time> WARNING: /usr/lib64/open-vm-tools/componentMgr/saltMinion/svtminion.sh:_curl_download failed to
download file 'repo.json' from 'https://repo.saltproject.io/salt/py3/onedir/repo.json' on '3' attempt, ret-
code '6'
<date+time> WARNING: /usr/lib64/open-vm-tools/componentMgr/saltMinion/svtminion.sh:_curl_download failed to
download file 'repo.json' from 'https://repo.saltproject.io/salt/py3/onedir/repo.json' on '4' attempt, ret-
code '6'
<date+time> ERROR: /usr/lib64/open-vm-tools/componentMgr/saltMinion/svtminion.sh:_curl_download failed to
download file 'repo.json' from 'https://repo.saltproject.io/salt/py3/onedir/repo.json' after '5' attempts

On Windows
The <vmware-svtminion-install-*.log" file for the failed install shows a trace similar to:
[<date+time>] [#] [DEBUG ] repo.json not found at: https://repo.saltproject.io/salt/py3/onedir
[<date+time>] [#] [DEBUG ] Looking for version in web directory: https://repo.saltproject.io/salt/py3/onedir/
latest
[<date+time>] [#] [DEBUG ] Directory not found: https://repo.saltproject.io/salt/py3/onedir/latest
[<date+time>] [#] [ERROR ] Failed to get Package Info for Version: latest
[<date+time>] [#] [INFO ] Setting status: installFailed
[<date+time>] [#] [DEBUG ] Set status to installFailed
This issue is resolved in this release.

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The new versions of the salt-minion integration scripts supporting the new Salt Project repository locations are available.
• https://packages.broadcom.com/artifactory/saltproject-generic/onedir/

Known Issues

VMware Tools Issues

The issues described in this section are not applicable to Windows Arm.
Provide tools.conf settings to deactivate one-time and periodic time synchronization
The new tools.conf settings disable-all and disable-periodic allow the guest OS administrator to deactivate one-
time and periodic time synchronization without rebooting the VM or restarting the guest OS.

Known Issues from Previous Releases

VMware Tools Issues

The Unity mode does not work with VMware Tools 12.4.0 and later
For VMs running on VMware Workstation 17.6 and earlier and VMware Fusion 13.6 and earlier, the Unity mode stops
working if the VMs run VMware Tools 12.4.0 and later versions.
The Unity mode has been deprecated, starting with VMware Workstation 17.6 and VMware Fusion 13.6. These product
versions include VMware Tools 12.4.5 or later. For more information about the features supported by VMware Workstation
and VMware Fusion, refer to product release notes.
Workaround: To use the Unity mode on earlier VMware Workstation and VMware Fusion versions, use VMware Tools
12.3.5 and earlier.
Memory leak when running the Ortec application
When you run the Ortec application, you might experience an increase in memory usage and see a memory error.
Workaround: To avoid this issue, set the system environment variable to zero - SVGA_ALLOW_LLVMPIPE=0
Shared Folders mount is unavailable on Linux VM
If the Shared Folders feature is enabled on a Linux VM while it is powered off, the shared folders mount is not available
on restart.
Note: This issue applies to VMware Tools running on Workstation and Fusion.
If the VM is powered on, disable and enable the Shared Folders feature from the interface. To resolve the issue
permanently, edit /etc/fstab and add an entry to mount the Shared Folders automatically on boot.
For example, add the line:
vmhgfs-fuse /mnt/hgfs fuse defaults,allow_other 0 0
For more information on how to configure VMware Tools Shared Folders, see KB 60262.
VMware Tools upgrade fails on Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 without SHA-2 code signing
support
Microsoft has changed Windows driver signing to use the SHA-2 algorithm exclusively starting December 3, 2019. Legacy
Windows systems without SHA-2 code signing support fail driver signature verification.
Refer to KB 78708.

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Installation of Windows Vista, Server 2008, or Windows 7 fails in a virtual machine

Installing a Windows OS Vista, Server 2008, or Windows 7 in a virtual machine with a boot disk on a PVSCSI controller,
fails to install the required PVSCSI driver.
Download the VMware Tools package version 11.1.5 from https://support.broadcom.com/, extract the contents, and use
the VMware Tools windows.iso or the floppies for Windows OS Vista or Server 2008.
NOTE
Users managing ESX hosts or having a requirement to perform multiple installations of the same Windows OS
version on a PVSCSI controller, can see the steps outlined in KB 84200.
VMware Tools upgrade failed with error code 1072 (The specified service has been marked for deletion.)
When upgrading VMware Tools to a new version, if the previous version's VMware Tools service is not deleted completely,
this incomplete service removal causes installing the new VMware Tools version service to fail and leads to a fatal error
for the upgrade.
When detecting an incomplete service removal to prevent VMware Tools upgrade from failing catastrophically every time,
the new service creation will pause and retry to see if the condition clears. The VMware Tools installer will pause for up to
2 1/2 minutes. After this, a fatal error will occur. If the condition clears, the upgrade creates the new service and continues.
For more information, see KB 84269.
Workaround: Reboot the Windows system and restart VMware Tools install.
After upgrading to a new version of VMware Tools with an installer parameter to remove the
NetworkIntrospection feature, the old version of the vnetflt or vnetWFP driver service continues to run
After the upgrade, the NetworkIntrospection feature is not present in the system's VMware Tools MSI database, but the
feature's vnetflt or vnetWFP driver service still exists.
Refer to KB 78016.
Note: This issue applies to VMware Tools upgrades from versions older than 11.1.0 only.
Installing or upgrading versions earlier than VMware Tools 10.3.0 to VMware Tools 11.1.x might take longer and
Windows OS might need a restart
The installation process might appear to be in progress and display a message similar to the following: "Preparing
'VMware Tools' for installation..."
During this process, the user might be prompted to restart the operating system.
For more information, see KB 55798.

VMware Tools Issues on Windows Arm

Windows Arm VMs encounter either BSOD with DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION or hang

Typically, with 3D games or resizing a remote desktop on VMware Tools 12.3.0, Windows Arm VMs encounter either
BSOD with DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION or hang.
You can disable 3D acceleration in VM settings. For more information, see KB 95283.

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VMware Tools Administration

The VMware Tools Guide describes how to install, upgrade, and configure VMware Tools.

Intended Audience
This information is intended for anyone who wants to install, upgrade, and configure VMware Tools. The information is
written for system administrators who are familiar with virtualization.

Introduction to VMware Tools

VMware Tools is a set of services and modules that enable several features in VMware products for better management of
guests operating systems and seamless user interactions with them.
VMware Tools has the ability to:
• Pass messages from the host operating system to the guest operating system.
• Customize guest operating systems as a part of the vCenter and other VMware products.
• Run scripts that help automate guest operating system operations. The scripts run when the power state of the virtual
machine changes.
• Synchronize the time in the guest operating system with the time on the host operating system
VMware Tools Lifecycle Management provides a simplified and scalable approach for installation and upgrade of VMware
Tools. It includes a number of feature enhancements, driver-related enhancements, and support for new guest operating
systems.
You must run the latest version of VMware Tools or use open-vm-tools distributed with the Linux OS distribution. Although
a guest operating system can run without VMware Tools, you must always run the latest version of VMware Tools in your
guest operating systems to access the latest features and updates.
You can configure your virtual machine to automatically check and apply VMware Tools upgrades each time you power on
your virtual machines.
For information about enabling automatic upgrade of VMware Tools on your virtual machines, see vSphere Virtual
Machine Administration Guide.

VMware Tools Services

The VMware Tools services start when the guest operating system starts. The service passes information between host
and guest operating systems.
• VMware Alias Manager and Ticket Service or VGAuthService: VGAuthService in taskmgr provides support
for SAML based authentication for vSphere Guest Operations, see guest.SAMLTokenAuthentication and
vim.vm.guest.GuestOperationsManager.
• VMware Snapshot Provider Service: VMware Snapshot Provider Service provides support for freezing or thawing file
systems for VSS (Volume Shadow Copy Service).
NOTE
This is applicable for Windows guest operating systems only.
• VMware Tools Daemon Service: This application runs in the background. It is called vmtoolsd.exe on Windows
guest operating systems, vmware-tools-daemon on Mac OS X guest operating systems, and vmtoolsd on Linux,

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FreeBSD, and Solaris guest operating systems. The VMware Tools service performs the following tasks using the plug-
ins:
• autohidpi - Set guest screen resolution for Mac OS X guest operating systems.
• autoLogon - Bypasses the guest operating system login when powering on a VM.
• autoUpgrade - Handles VMware Tools upgrade operations.
• bitMapper - Creates a bit map of disk blocks used by the guest operating system, used in vMotion.
• deployPkg - Handles guest customization operations.
• desktopEvents - Starting or stopping VMware Tools user service based on screen/X11 changes.
NOTE
This is a VMware Tools user service plug-in.
• disableGuestHibernate - Disables option for hibernation in guest operating system.
• diskWiper - Releases unused guest disk blocks so they can be reclaimed by the hypervisor.
• dndcp - Drag and drop, copy and paste operations. Enables copying and pasting of text, graphics, and files
between guest operating systems and hosts or client desktops. This is a VMware Tools user service plug-in.
• appInfo - Collects the information about running applications inside the guest and publishes the information to a
guest variable.
• guestInfo - Collects and reports guest information and statistics to hypervisor.
• hgfsServer - HGFS server for transferring files, drag and drop and VMware Tools upgrade operations.
• hgfsUsability - Handles mapping HGFS folders to special user folders, adds HGFS links to the desktop.
• hwUpgradeHelper - Handles changes due to virtual hardware upgrade.
• powerOps - Handles graceful shutdown and reboot of the guest, and execution of scripts for a power operation.
• resolutionKMS - Handles communicating guest user interface topology to the vmwgfx drm (direct rendering
manager) driver.
NOTE
This plug-in is for Linux only.
• resolutionSet - Handles guest screen re-sizing when vmwgfx drm (direct rendering manager) driver is not
available.
• timeSync - Synchronizes guest clock with host clock at power on or resume.
• vmbackup - Handles freezing and thawing file systems during a quiesced snapshot operation.
• vmtray - Provides VMware Tools tray icon and pop-up menu.
NOTE
This is a VMware Tools user service plug-in.
• vsep - Manages NSX file and network introspection.
• vix - Handles guest operations related to files, processes and registry.

VMware Tools Lifecycle Management

Starting with a major version 10.1.0, VMware tools added a simplified and scalable approach for the installation
and upgrade of VMware Tools, reboot-less upgrade for newer Linux Tools, support for OSP upgrades, enhanced
version reporting using UI, and status reporting using API and UI. This version was released with a number of feature
enhancements, driver-related enhancements, and support for new guest operating systems. With offline bundles and the
integration with SCCM to distribute and upgrade VMware Tools, VMware Tools 13.0.0 brings in several improvements to
lifecycle management.
• Offline bundles with VMware Tools VIB are available for installation on supported vSphere releases using vSphere
Lifecycle Manager (formerly vSphere Update Manager). These bundles are intended for vSphere 6.7 and later
versions, including vSphere 7.x, 8.x, and 9.0.
• Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) manages the deployment of Windows applications across an
enterprise and can also deploy VMware Tools. For more information, see Deploying VMware Tools using SCCM.

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VMware Tools 13.0.0 depends on and ships Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2022 Redistributable version 14.x. As a
prerequisite for VMware Tools 13.0.0 installation, Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2022 Redistributable is installed on the
system.

Mapping of VMware Tools and Guest Operating System

In earlier versions, VMware Tools ISO images were shipped with the ESX image. These ISO images are deployed on the
ProductLocker partition of the ESX. However, this approach poses a challenge due to the limited space in ProductLocker.
In order to address this space limitation, thewindows.iso is bundled with ESX. Other ISO images are available for
download from https://support.broadcom.com and will not be shipped with ESX in the tools-light VIB. ISO images for a few
end-of-life guest operating systems are frozen.

Table 1: VMware Tools support for Guest Operating Systems

ISO Images Supported Guest Operating System Available Version

windows.iso Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) or Windows Server 2008 • For Windows Server
R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) and later 2025, use VMware Tools
11.3.0 or later. For best
• Windows OS level prerequisites performance, use VMware
– Windows Server 2025 Tools 12.5.0 or later.
– Windows Server 2022 • For Windows Server
– Windows 11 2022 or Windows 11,
– Windows Server 2019 use VMware Tools
– Windows Server 2016 10.3.5 or later. For best
performance, use VMware
– Windows 10
Tools 12.0.0 or later.
– Windows Server 2012 R2 with Microsoft update
KB2919355 • For the other guest
operating system
– Windows 8.1 with Microsoft update KB2919355
versions, use VMware
– Windows Server 2012 Tools 10.1.0 or later.
– Windows 8
– Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1)
– Windows 7 SP1
– Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 (SP2)

linux.iso Linux guest operating systems with glibc version 2.5 and 10.3.0
later
darwin.iso MAC OS versions 10.11 and later 10.3.0
solaris.iso Solaris operating systems 10.3.0

Table 2: VMware Tools support for frozen Guest Operating Systems

ISO images Supported Guest Operating System Version of VMware Tools

winPre2k.iso Versions earlier than Windows 2000 7.7.0

netware.iso Netware operating systems 8.1.0

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ISO images Supported Guest Operating System Version of VMware Tools

winPreVista.iso Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 10.0.12
NOTE
Note: The Windows pre-Vista iso image for
VMWare Tools is no longer packaged with ESX.
The Windows pre-Vista iso image is available for
download by users who require it.

linuxPreGLibc25.iso Linux guest operating systems earlier than RHEL 5, SLES 10.0.12
11, and other distributions with glibc version earlier than 2.5
darwinPre15.iso MAC OS versions earlier than 10.10.x 10.0.12

VMware Tools Device Drivers

Device drivers improve sound, graphics, networking, and storage performance. You can select the drivers to be installed
while performing a custom VMware Tools installation or reinstallation.
The set of drivers that are installed when you install VMware Tools depends on the guest operating system and the
VMware product. For detailed information about the features or functionality of these drivers, including configuration
requirements, best practices, and performance, see the documentation for your VMware product. The following device
drivers can be included with VMware Tools.
VMCI Driver
The Virtual Machine Communication Interface driver supports fast and efficient communication between virtual machines and
the hosts they run on. Developers can write client-server applications to the VMCI Sock (vsock) interface to make use of the
VMCI virtual device.
VMCI driver is installed by default as part of VMware Tools installation. If the user had disabled this VMCI driver in the setup
settings during a previous installation, VMware Tools automatically re-installs VMCI driver during the upgrade.
NOTE
VMCI driver cannot be disabled as the VMware Tools System service functionality is dependent on this driver.
Guest Introspection Driver
The two Guest Introspection drivers are the File Introspection driver and the Network Introspection driver. You can install the
two drivers separately. When you install VMware Tools, by default, the Guest Introspection drivers are not installed.
• NSX File Introspection Driver: The File Introspection driver uses the hypervisor to perform antivirus scans without a bulky
agent. This strategy avoids resource bottlenecks and optimizes memory use.
• NSX Network Introspection Driver: The Network Introspection driver supports NSX for vSphere Activity Monitoring.
SVGA Driver
This virtual driver enables 32-bit displays, high display resolution, and faster graphics performance. When you install
VMware Tools, a virtual SVGA driver replaces the default VGA driver, which allows for only 640 X 480 resolution and 16-color
graphics.
On Windows guest operating systems whose operating system is Windows Vista or later, the VMware SVGA 3D (Microsoft
- WDDM) driver is installed. This driver provides the same base functionality as the SVGA driver, and it adds Windows Aero
support.
VMXNet NIC Driver
The VMXNET and VMXNET3 networking drivers improve network performance. The set of drivers that are used depends
on how you configure device settings for the virtual machine. Search the VMware Knowledge Base for information on which
guest operating systems support these drivers.
When you install VMware Tools, a VMXNET NIC driver replaces the default vlance driver.
Paravirtual SCSI Driver
When you create a virtual machine, if you specify that you want the virtual machine to use a BusLogic adapter, the guest
operating system uses the SCSI driver that VMware Tools provides. A VMware Paravirtual SCSI driver is included for

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 VMware Tools 13.0.0.0

use with Paravirtual SCSI devices. This driver for VMware Paravirtual SCSI adapters enhances the performance of some
virtualized applications. Drivers for other storage adapters are either bundled with the operating system, or they are available
from third-party vendors.
For example, Windows Server 2008 defaults to LSI Logic SAS, which provides the best performance for that operating
system. In this case, the LSI Logic SAS driver provided by the operating system is used.
VMware supplies a special SCSI driver for virtual machines that are configured to use the BusLogic virtual SCSI adapter.
Virtual machines do not need this driver if they do not need to access any SCSI devices or if they are configured to use the
LSI Logic virtual SCSI adapter.
The driver is included as part of the VMware Tools package or comes bundled with VMware ESX. It is available on the host
as a floppy image at /vmimages/floppies/vmscsi.flp. The driver can be used in Windows XP, Windows Server
2003, or Windows 2000.
Mouse Driver
The virtual mouse driver improves mouse performance. This driver is required if you use third-party tools such as Microsoft
Terminal Services.
Audio Driver
This sound driver is required for 64-bit Windows XP, 32-bit Windows Server 2003, 64-bit Windows Server 2003, Windows
Server 2008, Windows 7, and Windows Vista guest operating systems.
Audio driver
This sound driver is required for all 64-bit Windows guest operating systems and 32-bit Windows Server 2003, Windows
Server 2008, and Windows Vista guest operating systems if you use the virtual machine with Workstation or Fusion.
Kernel module for sharing folders
The host-guest file system module, called hgfs.sys on Windows guest operating systems and vmhgfs on Linux and
Solaris, is required to use the virtual machine with Workstation or Fusion and share folders between hosts and guests.
vmblock Module
Used in Workstation and Fusion, this module is essential for drag-and-drop copy operations between hosts and guests.
ThinPrint driver
This driver enables the Virtual Printing feature on Microsoft Windows virtual machines. With Virtual Printing, printers added to
the operating system on the client or host appear in the list of available printers in the guest operating system. No additional
printer drivers must be installed in the virtual machine.
Memory controller driver
This driver is required for memory ballooning and is recommended if you use VMware vSphere. Excluding this driver hinders
the memory management capabilities of the virtual machine in a vSphere deployment.
Modules and drivers that support making automatic backups of virtual machines
If the guest operating system is Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, or other newer Windows operating systems, a Volume
Shadow Copy Services (VSS) module is installed. For other, earlier Windows operating systems, the Filesystem Sync driver
is installed. These modules allow external third-party back up software that is integrated with vSphere to create application-
consistent snapshots. During the snapshot process, certain processes are paused and virtual machine disks are quiesced.
The modules also support quiescing snapshot on Linux OS
VMware drivers for Linux
The drivers for Linux are automatically installed during your operating system installation, eliminating the need to separately
install drivers after OS installation. VMware actively maintains the source code for VMware Paravirtual drivers, VMXNET,
VMXNET3 and kernel modules, and any Linux distributions creating new OS releases automatically include the latest
VMware drivers.
Do not delete or replace existing inbox drivers for Linux that are distributed by your OS vendors. Deleting or replacing these
drivers might cause conflict with future updates to the drivers. Contact your OS vendor or OS community for availability of
specific updates to drivers.
For more information about availability, maintenance, and support policy for inbox drivers for Linux, see the KB article
2073804.
VMHGFS driver
If you use Workstation or Fusion, you can install the Shared Folders component. With Shared Folders, you can easily share
files among virtual machines and the host computer. The VMHGFS driver is a file system redirector that allows file system
redirection from the guest operating system to the host file system. This driver is the client component of the Shared Folders
feature and provides an easy to use alternative to NFS and CIFS file sharing that does not rely on the network. For Linux

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distributions with kernel version 3.10 and later, a new FUSE based Shared Folders client is used as a replacement for the
kernel mode client.

VMware User Process

VMware user process allow you to use certain features (such as copy, paste, drag, drop and so on) with Vmware product
supporting them.
In Linux, Solaris, Windows and FreeBSD guest operating systems, VMware Tools uses the VMware User process
executable file that implements fit-guest-to-window feature.
The user process starts automatically when you log in to a Windows guest operating system. On Linux, the user process
starts when you start a Desktop Environment session. The user process can also be started manually.
The program file for this process is called vmtoolsd.exe on Windows guest operating systems and vmtoolsd on Linux,
Solaris, and FreeBSD guest operating systems. In POSIX, it is vmtoolsd with -n vmusr on command line interface.
The user process supports the following tasks:
• Enables copy and paste of text between guest operating system and the vSphere Web Client or the Workstation,
Fusion, or Player host operating system. For virtual machines that are used with Workstation or Fusion, you can
copy and paste files between the host operating system and Windows, Linux, Solaris, and FreeBSD guest operating
systems.
• On Linux, Solaris, Windows, and FreeBSD guest operating systems, grabs and releases the pointer if the SVGA driver
is not installed.
• On Linux, Solaris, and FreeBSD guest operating systems, fits the screen display resolution of the guest to the screen
resolution of the vSphere Web Client or the Workstation, Fusion, or Player host operating system, if running in full
screen mode. If running in normal (windowed) mode, fits the screen resolution of the guest to the size of the window on
the client or host.
• For virtual machines used with Workstation or Fusion, allows you to drag files between the host operating system and
Windows, Linux, Solaris, and FreeBSD guest operating systems.

Open VM Tools
Open VM Tools (open-vm-tools) is the open source implementation of VMware Tools for Linux and FreeBSD guest
operating systems.
The open-vm-tools suite is bundled with some Linux operating systems and is installed as a part of the OS, eliminating the
need to separately install the suite on guest operating systems. All leading Linux vendors support the open-vm-tools suite
on vSphere, Workstation, and Fusion, and bundle open-vm-tools with their product releases. For information about OS
compatibility check for the open-vm-tools suite, see the Broadcom Compatibility Guide.
NOTE
Use of open-vm-tools with a OS distribution which is not listed under VMware Compatibility Guide must be
certified by VMware.
Bundling open-vm-tools with Linux OS releases reduces virtual machine downtime because all updates to the open-
vm-tools suite are included with the OS maintenance patches and updates. You do not have to maintain separate
maintenance cycles for open-vm-tools suite updates. This is also applicable for VMware guest operating system drivers.
In some cases, open-vm-tools is installed by default when you install your guest operating systems. In other cases, the
open-vm-tools suite is not installed by default, unless specifically selected during installation.
Follow the installation instructions provided by your OS vendor for your specific release, or check the partner website at
http://partnerweb.vmware.com/GOSIG/home.html.
VMware fully supports open-vm-tools that are developed in collaboration with OS vendors and open source communities
and recommends using open-vm-tools that are redistributed by your OS vendors.

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NOTE
For support on open-vm-tools, you must contact the Linux OS vendors.

Open VM Tools Packages

For better managing guest operating systems, the open-vm-tools suite includes the following packages:
• The core open-vm-tools package contains the core open-vm-tools user-space utilities, application programs, and
libraries, including vmtoolsd, to help effectively manage communication between your host and guest operating
systems. This package includes features as, synchronizing guest OS clocks with the virtualization platform, transferring
files between hosts and guests, sending heartbeat information from guest OSs to the virtualization infrastructure to
support vSphere High Availability (HA), publishing resource utilization and networking information of the guest OSs to
the virtualization platform, and so on.
• The open-vm-tools-desktop package is optional and includes additional user programs and libraries to improve
the interactive functionality of desktop operations of your virtual machines. The package enables you to resize a guest
display to match its host console window or the VMware Remote Console Window for vSphere. The package also
allows you to copy and paste between host and guest operating systems, as well as to drag and drop between guests
and a host for the VMware Workstation and VMware Fusion products.
• The open-vm-tools-devel package contains libraries and additional documentation for developing vmtoolsd
plug-ins and applications.
• The open-vm-tools-debuginfo package contains the source code for open-vm-tools and binary files. For the
latest copy of the Open VM Tools source code, see the GitHub website at https://github.com/vmware/open-vm-tools.
• The Vendor-provided optional packages (availability varies by distribution). Some Linux versions may include
additional open-vm-tools packages tailored for specific use cases.
– open-vm-tools-sdmp contains a plug-in for Service Discovery.
– open-vm-tools-containerinfo contains the containerInfo plug-in, which requires additional build and runtime
dependencies.
– open-vm-tools-salt-minion embeds Salt Minion for configuration management.
List of operating systems with open-vm-tools
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.0 and later releases
• SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 and later releases
• Ubuntu 14.04 and later releases
• CentOS 7 and later releases
• FreeBSD 10.3, 10.4, 11.1, and later releases
• Debian 7.x and later releases
• Oracle Linux 7 and later
• Fedora 19 and later releases
• openSUSE 11.x and later releases
NOTE
To manually install open-vm-tools on a FreeBSD virtual machine, see FreeBSD 10.x and FreeBSD 11.x.
.
IMPORTANT
If you use open-vm-tools, the VMware Tools status is Guest Managed on the virtual machine Summary tab. The
status Guest Managed means that you cannot use the vCenter to manage VMware Tools and you cannot use
vSphere Update Manager to upgrade VMware Tools.
For information about the open-vm-tools support policy and availability, see the KB article 2073803.

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Operating System Specific Packages for Linux Guest Operating Systems

For vSphere deployments, VMware provides operating system specific packages (OSPs) as a packaging and distribution
mechanism for VMware Tools. These VMware Tools OSPs are packaged using native package formats and standards
such as rpm and deb.
NOTE
Operating System Specific Packages are not provided for new Linux operating systems that have open-vm-
tools. For information about compatibility support for guest operating system, see the VMware Compatibility
Guide.
Using OSPs provides the following benefits:
• You can use the native update mechanisms of the guest operating system to download, install, and manage VMware
Tools.
• You can upgrade to the latest version of VMware Tools without having to upgrade to the latest version of vSphere.
• Because VMware Tools OSPs follow the best practices and standards of the specific Linux operating system, OSPs
use standard mechanisms for determining dependencies among packages. These mechanisms allow you to audit the
packages on virtual machines with or without graphics components.
• You can use standard operating system tools to examine OSPs during VMware Tools installation. This process allows
you to easily determine which components to install and to verify the validity of the packaging.
IMPORTANT
Use OSPs if you want to use native update mechanisms, rather than vCenter, to manage updates for VMware
Tools. If you use an OSP, the VMware Tools status is Guest Managed on the virtual machine Summary tab.
The status Guest Managed means that you cannot use the vCenter system to manage VMware Tools and you
cannot use vSphere Update Manager to upgrade VMware Tools.
For more information, go to the Broadcom Operating System Specific Packages Web site. For more information on
installing OSPs, see the VMware Tools Installation Guide for Operating System Specific Packages for ESX version 4.1
and later, and ESX versions 5.x and 6.x.

Installing VMware Tools

Installing VMware Tools is part of the process of creating a new virtual machine, and upgrading VMware Tools is part
of the process of keeping your virtual machine up to current standards. Although your guest operating systems can run
without VMware Tools, many VMware features are not available until you install VMware Tools. When you install VMware
Tools, the utilities in the suite enhance the performance of the guest operating system in your virtual machine and improve
the management of your virtual machines.
For information about creating virtual machines, see the documentation for the applicable VMware product.
The installers for VMware Tools are ISO image files. The CD-ROM in your guest operating system detects the ISO image
file. Each type of guest operating system, including Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X, has an ISO image file. When you
select the command to install or upgrade VMware Tools, the virtual machine’s first virtual CD-ROM disk drive temporarily
connects to the VMware Tools ISO file for your guest operating system.
If you are using VMware Fusion, Workstation Player, or Workstation Pro, you can use the Windows Easy Install or Linux
Easy Install feature to install VMware Tools as soon as the operating system is finished installing.
You can use the Windows Easy Install or Linux Easy Install feature to install VMware Tools as soon as the operating
system is finished installing.
If you are using VMware Fusion, Workstation Player, or Workstation Pro, the most recent versions of the ISO files are
stored on a VMware Web site. When you select the command to install or upgrade VMware Tools, the VMware product
determines whether it has downloaded the most recent version of the ISO file for the specific operating system. If the

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latest version was not downloaded or if no VMware Tools ISO file for that operating system was ever downloaded, you are
prompted to download the file.
The most recent versions of the ISO files are stored on a VMware Web site. When you select the command to install or
upgrade VMware Tools, the VMware product determines whether it has downloaded the most recent version of the ISO
file for the specific operating system. If the latest version has not been downloaded or if no VMware Tools ISO file for that
operating system has ever been downloaded, you are prompted to download the file.
• VMware Tools installer from windows.iso automatically detects the windows version. It does not proceed with the
installation on guest operating systems earlier than Windows Vista.
• VMware Tools installer from winPreVista.iso does not proceed with the installation on Windows Vista and later.
• VMware Tools installer from linux.iso does not proceed with installation on Linux guest operating system versions
earlier than RHEL5, SLES 11, Ubuntu 10.04, and other Linux distributions with glibc version earlier than 2.5.
• VMware Tools installer from darwinPre15.iso does not proceed with installation on MAC OS X guest operating
systems versions 10.11 or later.
• VMware Tools installer from darwin.iso does not proceed with installation on MAC OS X guest operating systems
versions earlier than 10.11.
NOTE
On ESX hosts, for guest operating systems that do not have the necessary VMware Tools ISOs bundled, users
must set up the ProductLockerLocation variable on all the VMware Tools ISO images to manage VMware Tools
on these guests. Attempts to upgrade or install without setting up the ProductLockerLocation variable fails with a
missing ISO error. For more information, see KB 2129825.
NOTE
AppDefense is not supported for VMware Tools 12.0.0 and later versions.
The installation procedure varies, depending on the operating system. For information about installing or upgrading
VMware Tools on your guest operating systems, see the topic about upgrading virtual machines in the Virtual Machine
Administration Guide. For general instructions about installing VMware Tools, see the KB article 1014294.
NOTE
If the VMware Tools ISO file for the guest operating system is not available with the product, you are prompted
to download the file from https://packages-prod.broadcom.com/tools/frozen/. Alternatively, on the host, from the
VMware Workstation ProVMware Fusion menu bar, select Virtual Machine > Install VMware Tools. You will
get a link to download the specific VMware Tools ISO file.

Disable Access Protection from McAfee Antivirus Virus Scan Console

You must disable the Access Protection in the McAfee Antivirus Scan Console before installing VMware Tools in a
Windows guest operating system.
• Power on the virtual machine
• Use McAfee Antivirus in 'Standard' mode
1. Install VMware Tools before installing McAfee Antivirus on the Windows guest operating system.
NOTE
McAfee Antivirus prevents VMware Tools upgrade, if it is run in 'Maximum Protection' mode.

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 VMware Tools 13.0.0.0

2. Disable Access Protection from the McAfee Antivirus Virus Scan Console when either installing or upgrading
VMware Tools.
a) Select Start > Programs > McAfee > Virus Scan Console.
b) Right-click the Access Protection icon in the Tasks window and select Disable from the pop-up menu.
• Install VMware Tools.
• Re-activate Access Protection when your VMware Tools upgrade or installation is complete.
• For more information, see the KB article 1009965.
Enable Carbon Black Sensor using VMware Tools for Windows
VMware Tools enables Carbon Black Sensor feature to provide intrinsic security in the virtual machine. VMware Tools
Carbon Black feature comprises of a lightweight VMware Tools system service Carbon Black Helper (CBHelper) plug-
in and a Carbon Black launcher (CBLauncher) application. The CBHelper plug-in runs as part of VMware Tools service.
When the administrator enables security in a virtual machine, this CBHelper plug-in triggers the CBLauncher, which
downloads the Carbon Black Sensor install package, performs installation, and exits.
Ensure the following before using this feature:
• vCenter version: 6.7U1 and higher
• VMTools version: 11.2
• Only 64 bit platforms are supported. List of supported platforms:
– Desktop Platforms: Windows 7-SP1, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10
– Server Platforms: Windows Server 2008R2, 2012, 2012R2, 2016, 2019
VMware Tools enables only the new installation, upgrade, or uninstallation of the CBHelper plug-in and CBLauncher
application. For any following VMware Tools uninstall or upgrade, it only upgrades or removes the VMware Tools system
service CBHelper plug-in and CBLauncher. It does not uninstall the Carbon Black installer or Sensor.
NOTE
Carbon Black Sensor is a separate product installation from VMware Tools. VMware Tools does not install
the Carbon Black Sensor, but provides support to enable this feature by installing the CBHelper plug-in and
CBLauncher application.
1. Installing VMware Carbon Black Sensor on a virtual machine
• Enable the CBHelper plug-in
– VMware Tools Installer:
The VMware CBHelper plug-in is present as as part of the default installation setup of VMware Tools. By default,
this plug-in is enabled.
– Silent installation:
To add the CBHelper plug-in after installation is complete, run the following command:
setup.exe /S /v "/qn REBOOT=R ADDLOCAL=CBHelper"
• Disable the CBHelper plug-in:
– VMware Tools Installer:
To disable the CBHelper plug-in, select CUSTOM option in the VMware Tools Installer Setup and remove the the
Carbon Black Helper feature from the default settings list.
– Silent installation:
To install of VMware Tools without the CBHelper plug-in using silent installation, run the following command:
setup.exe /S /v "/qn REBOOT=R ADDLOCAL=ALL REMOVE=CBHelper"
2. Overriding the installation of VMware Carbon Black Sensor on a virtual machine
There are two ways to turn off installation of Carbon Black Sensors:
• VMware Tools Configuration File:

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The VI administrator can set the CBHelper plug-in poll interval to 0 by updating the tools.conf. By default, the
poll interval value is 180 seconds.
• Registry Setting:
When a VM administrator (other than the VI administrator) wants to block the Carbon Black Sensor installation,
even if the VMware Tools is installed with the Carbon Black feature, the CBLauncher provides a configuration to
override this feature. When this configuration is set, CBLauncher skips the installation of the Carbon Black Sensor.
This override mechanism provides an ‘opt-out” for VM administrators.
For Windows, this registry setting is as follows,
Registry Path: HKLM\SOFTWARE\VMware Inc.\CbLauncher
• Value Name: DisableCBInstall
• Value Name: DisableCBInstall
• Value Type: REG_DWORD
• Value Data: 1

Operation Result
• 1 – Disable installation: The Carbon Black Sensor will not be installed.
• Any other value/no value/error: Ignored. The Carbon Black Sensor will be installed.
NOTE
A Carbon Black Cloud Workload Plug-in is provided for vCenter to secure your workloads. For more
information on how to install, configure, and use this plug-in, see the VMware Carbon Black Cloud Workload
guide.

Enable Salt Minion Using VMware Tools

Salt Project is Python-based open-source software for event-driven IT automation, remote task execution, and
configuration management.
• Supports only 64-bit operating systems.
• Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2019, and Windows Server 2022 are supported.
NOTE
Windows Server 2008 R2 is not supported.
• VMware Tools must be installed with the Salt Minion feature. By default, this feature is enabled.
• There are dependencies on installed packages in Linux (like curl and wget)
For more information on Salt, see the Salt User Guide.
Salt requires a salt-minion to be deployed on the guest. Salt-specific guest variables are set on the host side per VM basis
and subsequently read by VMware Tools inside the guest. VMware Tools then downloads the salt bundle and spins up a
salt-minion instance inside the guest.
• Host side configuration per VM using guest variables
The host admin manages all the guest variable settings on the host side for a particular VM using the VIM API or
vSphere/VC UI.
• – Windows:
The VMware Tools Salt Minion feature is installed by default and can be modified in a custom installation.
For VMware Tools to create a salt-minion instance on a particular VM and connect the salt-minion with the salt-
master, the host admin must configure and set the guest variable for that VM.

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In the vSphere Client, navigate to, right-click a VM, and select Edit Settings. In the VM Options tab, select
Advanced > Edit Configuration > Add/Delete parameter , and set
• guestinfo./vmware.components.salt_minion.desiredstate to present
• guestinfo./vmware.components.salt_minion.args to <custom arguments to VMware Tools
salt-minion setup script>
For example:
guestinfo./vmware.components.salt_minion.desiredstate → present
guestinfo./vmware.components.salt_minion.args → master=1.2.3.4
– Linux:
The host admin must install open-vm-tools and open-vm-tools-salt-minion, and then set the guest variable for a
particular VM as:
• guestinfo./vmware.components.salt_minion.desiredstate to present
• guestinfo./vmware.components.salt_minion.args to <custom arguments to VMware Tools
salt-minion setup script>
For example:
guestinfo./vmware.components.salt_minion.desiredstate → present
guestinfo./vmware.components.salt_minion.args → master=1.2.3.4 id=12345
• Removing salt-minion
In Windows or Linux, if the host admin sets the guest variable guestinfo./
vmware.components.salt_minion.desiredstate to absent, then VMware Tools removes the salt-minion
instance in the guest VM.
For example:
guestinfo./vmware.components.salt_minion.desiredstate → absent
• Checking the latest status of salt-minion inside the guest
To check the latest status of the salt-minion inside the guest in the vSphere Client, use the guest variable:
guestinfo.vmware.components.salt_minion.laststatus
• Guest side configuration using tools.conf
The tools.conf file contains the configurations for VMware Tools in an .ini format. This tool looks for the
salt_minion section and uses the configurations defined under that section. This file is stored at:
Windows - C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware Tools\tools.conf
Linux - /etc/vmware-tools/tools.conf
Here is an example of the salt_minion section as defined in tools.conf:
[salt_minion]
master=1.2.3.4
conf_file=/etc/salt/minion
id=dev_minion

NOTE
Only minion config options are available in tools.conf. The desired script action cannot be obtained from
tools.conf.
• Configuring the interval to monitor state change in the guest variables:
VMware Tools periodically polls guest variables for state changes. The default poll-inteval is 180 seconds and can
be configured in the tools.conf settings.
[componentmgr]

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poll-interval=180 (Default value: 180 seconds)

• Enabling and disabling component (salt_minion):
– The guest admin can enable salt_minion by configuring the tools.conf settings.
[componentmgr]
included=salt_minion
– Guest admin can enable all the components by configuring the tools.conf settings.
[componentmgr]
included=all (Default configuration)
– Guest admin can deactivate all components by configuring the tools.conf settings.
[componentmgr]
included=none
• Installing salt-minion using an install script
• Linux environment
On Linux systems, the install script svtminion.sh is a bash script with the following prerequisites:
-systemctl
-curl
-sha256sum
-vmtoolsd
-grep
-awk
-sed
-cut
-wget
svtminion.sh --help shows the command line options.
Usage:
bora-vmsoft/install/Source/services/plugins/componentMgr/svtminion.sh
[-c|--clear] [-d|--depend] [-h|--help] [-i|--install]
[-j|--source] [-l|--loglevel] [-m|--minionversion]
[-n|--reconfig] [-q|--stop] [-p|--start]
[-r|--remove] [-s|--status] [-u|--upgrade]
[-v|--version]

Script Description

-c, --clear Clears the previous Salt Minion identifier and keys, and sets the
specified identifier if it is present.
-d, --depend Checks the dependencies required to run the existing script.
-h, --help Shows the help message and exit.
-c, --clear Clears the previous Salt Minion identifier and keys, and sets the
specified identifier if present.
-i, --install Install and activate Salt Minion configuration parameters. The
key=value can also be passed on to the CLI.

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Script Description

-j, --source Specifies location to install Salt Minion from. The default is https://
packages.broadcom.com/artifactory/saltproject-generic/onedir/
For example: URL location
http://my_web_server.com/my_salt_onedir
https://my_web_server.com/my_salt_onedir
file://my_path/my_salt_onedir
//my_path/my_salt_onedir
If a specific Salt Minion version is specified with -m , it will be
appended to the source path. The default is the latest version.
-l, --loglevel Sets the log level for logging: silent error, warning, debug, info.
The default loglevel is warning.
-m, --minionversion Installs a Salt Minion version. The default Salt Minion version is
latest .
-n, --reconfig Restarts the Salt Minion after reading the updated config.
-q, --stop Stops Salt Minion.
-p, --start Starts or restarts Salt Minion.
-r, --remove Deactivates and removes Salt Minion.
-s, --status Returns the status for this script.
-u, --upgrade Upgrades when installing. Used with --install .
-v, --version Displays the script version.

For example, the Salt Minion VMware Tools integrations script is svtminion.sh --status .
Here is an example of the installing salt_minion as defined in tools.conf:
[salt_minion]
master=1.2.3.4
conf_file=/etc/salt/minion
id=dev_minion
source=https://my_web_server.com/my_salt_onedir

NOTE
If installing from your private replica of the standard repository location for salt, use source=https://
packages.broadcom.com/artifactory/saltproject-generic/onedir/ .
• Windows environment
On Windows systems, the install script svtminion.ps1 is a powershell script. The only prerequisite for Windows
is the 'vmtoolsd.exe' binary, which is used to query the guest variables data.
To get help for this script, run the command svtminion.ps1 -h or Get-Help svtminion.ps1 .
VMware Tools script for managing the Salt minion on a Windows guest is:
.\svtminion.ps1 [-Install] [-MinionVersion <String>] [-Source <String>] [[-ConfigOptions] <String[]>] [-
LogLevel <String>] [-Help] [-Version] [<CommonParameters>]
where -Source <String> is the URL or path to the repo containing the installers.
This would contain a directory structure similar to that found at the default location: https://
packages.broadcom.com/artifactory/saltproject-generic/onedir/. This can handle most common protocols like http,
https, ftp, unc, local.
For example:
PS>svtminion.ps1 -Install
PS>svtminion.ps1 -Install -MinionVersion 3004-1 master=192.168.10.10 id=dev_box
PS>svtminion.ps1 -Install -Source https://my.domain.com/vmtools/salt

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 VMware Tools 13.0.0.0

NOTE
To see the examples, type get-help .\svtminion.ps1 -examples
For more information, type get-help .\svtminion.ps1 -detailed
For technical information, type get-help .\svtminion.ps1 -full
• Fetching log information
Guest admin can fetch log information related to salt-minion from the following path:
Windows

Log File Location

Log file for checking salt-minion status C:\Windows\Temp\vmware-svtminion-status-{Tim

estamp}.log
Log file for installing a salt-minion instance inside the guest C:\Windows\Temp\vmware-svtminion-install-{Ti
meStamp}.log
Log file for removing a salt-minion instance inside the guest: C:\Windows\Temp\vmware-svtminion-remove-{Tim
eStamp}.log
Log file for checking runtime information after installing or C:\salt\var\log\minion log files
removing a salt-minion instance inside the guest

Linux

Log File Location

Log file for checking salt-minion status /var/log/vmware-svtminion.sh-status-{Timesta

mp}.log
Log file for installing a salt-minion instance inside the guest /var/log/vmware-svtminion.sh-install-{TimeSt
amp}.log
Log file for removing a salt-minion instance inside the guest: /var/log/vmware-svtminion.sh-remove-{TimeSta
mp}.log
Log file for checking runtime information after installing or /var/log/salt/minion
removing a salt-minion instance inside the guest

Manually Install VMware Tools on Windows

You can manually install VMware Tools on a Windows virtual machine. The Guest operating systems that support VMware
Tools are Windows 2000 and earlier, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista and later versions.
• Power on the virtual machine.
• Verify that the guest operating system is running.
• For vSphere virtual machines, determine whether you have the latest version of VMware Tools. In the vSphere Client
inventory, select the virtual machine and click the Summary tab.
• For Workstation Player, Fusion, and Workstation Pro virtual machines, if you connected the virtual machine’s virtual
CD/DVD drive to an ISO image file when you installed the operating system, change the setting so that the virtual CD/
DVD drive is configured to autodetect a physical drive.
The autodetect setting enables the virtual machine's first virtual CD/DVD drive to detect and connect to the VMware
Tools ISO file for a VMware Tools installation. This ISO file looks like a physical CD to your guest operating system.
Use the virtual machine settings editor to set the CD/DVD drive to autodetect a physical drive.

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 VMware Tools 13.0.0.0

• Log in as an administrator unless you are using an older Windows operating system. Any user can install VMware
Tools in a Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows ME guest operating system. For operating systems later than these,
you must log in as an administrator.
• If you use vSphere and plan to install the Guest Introspection Thin Agent driver, see the system requirements listed
in the vShield Quick Start Guide. The vShield component is not installed by default. You must perform a custom
installation and include that component.

Perform the following steps to manually install VMware Tools on Windows.

1. Select the menu command to mount the VMware Tools virtual disk on the guest operating system.
VMware Product Action
vSphere Client Right-click the virtual machine and select Guest OS > Install
VMware Tools...orGuest OS > Upgrade VMware Tools...
Fusion Virtual Machine > Install (or Upgrade) VMware Tools
Workstation Pro VM > Install (or Upgrade) VMware Tools
Workstation Player Player > Manage > Install (or Upgrade) VMware Tools

2. If you are using vCenter and are performing an upgrade or reinstallation, in the Install/Upgrade VMware Tools dialog
box, select Interactive Tools Installation or Interactive Tools Upgrade and click OK.
The process starts by mounting the VMware Tools virtual disc on the guest operating system.
3. If you are installing VMware Tools for the first time, click OK on the Install VMware Tools information page.
If autorun is enabled for the CD-ROM drive on the guest operating system, the VMware Tools installation wizard starts.
To launch the wizard manually if autorun is not enabled, click Start > Run and enter D:\setup.exe, where D: is your
first virtual CD-ROM drive.
4. Follow the on-screen prompts.
If you use vSphere to install nondefault components, such as the Guest Introspection Thin Agent driver, select the
Custom setup.
NOTE
If NSX Guest Introspection (GI) drivers are installed and you are using ‘Custom’ installation option in the
Tools installer for upgrade, ensure that all installed GI drivers are upgraded during upgrade.
5. When prompted, reboot the virtual machine.
If you use vCenter, the VMware Tools label on the Summary tab changes to OK.
If you upgraded VMware Tools as part of a vSphere upgrade, determine whether to upgrade the virtual machines in
your environment. To review and compare the hardware available for different compatibility levels, see the vSphere
Virtual Machine Administration documentation.

Manually Install VMware Tools on Windows Arm

You can manually install VMware Tools for Windows Arm on a virtual machine running Windows 10 1709 Arm and later
versions. VMware only supports Windows Arm VMs running on VMware Fusion on Apple silicon.

This VMware Tools Arm functionality is limited to:

• Installer with interactive GUI and command line support
• 3D Graphics
• Multiple monitor
• Resizing fit to window
• Guest clock time synchronization
• Soft power operations

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 VMware Tools 13.0.0.0

• Desktop events for user switching

• Drag and drop of files between the host and guest
• Copy and paste of files and text between host and guest
• vmrun support for running guest operations
For example, transferring files to and from guest, running programs and scripts in the guest.
For the prerequisites and install steps, refer to the Manually Install VMware Tools on Windows section for the VMware
Fusion product.

Automatically Install VMware Tools on Multiple Windows Virtual Machines

You can install VMware Tools on multiple virtual machines with Windows guest operating systems. You can automate this
installation and specify the VMware Tools components that you want to include or exclude in the options.
• Power on the virtual machine.
• Log in to the guest operating system as an administrator.
• If you plan to use the setup.exe command at the command line to run the VMware Tools installation, edit the virtual
machine settings to connect the virtual CD/DVD drive to the VMware Tools ISO image.
• In VMware Workstation Pro and Workstation Player, the windows.iso file is on the host in the directory where you
installed Workstation Pro or Workstation Player.
• If you plan to use the setup.exe command at the command line to run the VMware Tools installation, edit the virtual
machine settings to connect the virtual CD/DVD drive to the VMware Tools ISO image. In VMware Workstation Pro
and Workstation Player, the windows.iso file is on the host in the directory where you installed Workstation Pro or
Workstation Player.
• If you plan to use MSI arguments to specify options regarding the silent installation, go to the Windows Installer page
on the MSDN Web site to familiarize yourself with the syntax. You can use these arguments with the setup.exe
command or place them in the vCenter dialog box for automatic installations and upgrades.
• To prevent some VMware Tools components from being installed, familiarize yourself with the VMware Tools
component names so that you can specify which components to exclude. See Specify VMware Tools Components for
Silent Installations.
1. In vSphere Client, select the host, cluster, or datacenter and click the Virtual Machine inventory object.
2. Right-click the virtual machine and select Guest OS > Install VMware Tools.
3. Provide the install or upgrade configuration information.

Specify VMware Tools Components in Silent Installation

You can specify the VMware Tools Components that you want during VMware Tools installation using the command line
options and properties, or during the automatic installation process.
VMware Tools provides various VMware Tools Components. You can install these components either during a new
installation or an upgrade of VMware Tools.
Silent Install - New Install or Upgrade
The command format for a new install or upgrade is:
setup.exe /S /v "/qn msi_args"
The command format to include all customizable features except those specified, using ADDLOCAL and REMOVE MSI
properties is:
setup.exe /S /v "/qn msi_args ADDLOCAL=ALL REMOVE=component"

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 VMware Tools 13.0.0.0

NOTE
Component name is feature name and is case-sensitive. If you want to remove more than one component, the
feature names must be comma separated.

For example:
• To install all customizable features except the 'Shared Folders' feature, run the command:
setup.exe /S /v "/qn REBOOT=R ADDLOCAL=ALL REMOVE=Hgfs"
• To install all customizable features except the 'Shared Folders', 'File Introspection', 'Network Introspection',
and 'Salt Minion' features, run the command:
setup.exe /S /v "/qn REBOOT=R ADDLOCAL=ALL
REMOVE=Hgfs,FileIntrospection,NetworkIntrospection,SaltMinion"
• The following command shows MSI options and properties to perform a silent installation with a logging
file specified that suppresses rebooting when installation is complete. This command also installs all
components except the shared folders component.
setup.exe /S /v "/qn /l*v ""%TEMP%\vmmsi.log"" REBOOT=R ADDLOCAL=ALL
REMOVE=Hgfs"
Silent Install - Modify Install
After a new install or upgrade, to modify the installed customizable features, you can add or remove a component using
the ADDLOCAL and/or REMOVE MSI properties:
setup.exe /S /v "/qn msi_args ADDLOCAL=component REMOVE=component"
msi_args can be specified as mentioned above for logging and suppressing of reboot. For more extensive list of
msi_args arguments, see Microsoft documentation.

Table 3: VMware Tools Visible Core Components (Not customizable)

Feature Name Description

VMCI Virtual Machine Communication Interface (VMCI) driver allows virtual machines to
communicate with the hosts on which they run without using the network. Developers
can write client-server applications to the VMCI Sock (vsock) interface to make use
of the VMCI virtual device.
VMCI driver is installed by default as part of VMware Tools installation. If the user had
disabled this VMCI driver in the setup settings during a previous installation, VMware
Tools automatically re-installs VMCI driver during the upgrade.
NOTE
From this release onwards, VMCI driver cannot be disabled as the
VMware Tools System service functionality is dependent on this driver.

Other core components installed by default are not visible.

Table 4: VMware Tools Customizable Components (Using ADDLOCAL and/or REMOVE MSI properties) Note:
Features available on Windows Arm are noted in the description.

Feature Name Description

CBHelper Helper to install of Carbon black Sensor on a virtual machine.

Perfmon Utility for WMI performance logging. Enables performance monitoring between the
Guest SDK and the WMI environment.

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 VMware Tools 13.0.0.0

Feature Name Description

VmwTimeProvider Time provider for VMware virtual precision clock device.

FileIntrospection The NSX File Introspection driver, vsepflt.sys is the first of the two guest
introspection drivers. You can install it separately, without installing the NSX Network
Introspection driver.
NOTE
This component is dependent on the VMCI driver.
NetworkIntrospection The NSX Network Introspection driver, vnetflt.sys is the second of the two guest
introspection drivers.
NOTE
This component is dependent on the VMCI driver.
VMware Tools 10.2.5 supports vnetWFP driver for Windows 7 and later.
ServiceDiscovery The Service Discovery component enables the discovery of various services running
inside a virtual machine.
NOTE
This user-mode component is dependent on the VMCI driver.
DeviceHelper The VMware Device Helper component helps to perform a device check and swap in
your virtual machine.
NOTE
This user-mode component is dependent on the VMCI driver.
Hgfs Hgfs is a VMware shared folders driver that allows files to be shared between your
virtual machine and the host computer.
You can use this driver, if you plan to use this virtual machine with VMware
Workstation, Player, or Fusion.
NOTE
• If you exclude this feature, you cannot share a folder between your
virtual machine and the host system.
• This component is dependent on the VMCI driver.
SVGA The VMware SVGA driver enhances the performance of your virtual video card.
NOTE
If you exclude this feature, it limits the display capabilities of your virtual
machine.
NOTE
This feature is also available for Windows Arm.
VMXNet The VMware VMXNet networking driver enhances the performance of your virtual
network card.
VMXNet3 The VMware VMXNet3 networking driver enahnces the performance of your virtual
network card (ndis5/ndis6). This is the Next-generation VMware VMXnet networking
driver for virtual machines that use virtual hardware version 7 and higher.
For more information, see the KB article 1001805.
VMXNET3 adds several new features, such as multiqueue support (also known as
'Receive Side Scaling' in Windows), IPv6 offloads, and MSI/MSI-X interrupt delivery.
VMXNET 3 is not related to VMXNET or VMXNET 2.
Receive Side Scaling is enabled by default.
VMware Tools 10.3.0 adds receive data ring support for the Windows VMXNET3 driver.
Virtual hardware version 7 corresponds to ESX 4.x compatibility.
NOTE
This feature is also available for Windows Arm.

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 VMware Tools 13.0.0.0

Feature Name Description

PVSCSI The VMware Paravirtual SCSI adapters enhances the performance of your paravirtual
SCSI devices.
EFIFW The EFIFW driver is used for EFI Firmware update.
MemCtl The Memory Control Driver provides enahnced memory management of the virtual
machine.
You can use this driver, if you plan to use a virtual machine in the vSphere
environment.
NOTE
If you exclude this feature, it hinders the memory management capabilities
of the virtual machine running in a vSphere environment.

Mouse The VMware PS2 Mouse driver enhances the performance of your virtual PS2 mouse.
NOTE
If you exclude this feature, the mouse performance of your virtual machine
will decrease.
MouseUsb The VMware USB Mouse Driver enhances performance of your USB mouse.
NOTE
This feature is also available for Windows Arm.

Audio The Audio driver provides audio for your virtual sound card.
NOTE
This Audio driver is for 64-bit Windows Vista and later operating systems.
VSS The VSS driver is used for creating automatic backups. This driver is used, if the guest
operating system is Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, or other newer operating
systems. Linux and older Windows operating systems use the Filesystem Sync driver.
BootCamp The BootCamp driver provides Mac BootCamp support.
SaltMinion Scripts required to set up Salt Minion on a vritual machine.

Manually Install VMware Tools on Linux

You can manually install VMware Tools on a Linux virtual machine using the command line. For later Linux distributions,
use the integrated open-vm-tools version.
• Power on the virtual machine.
• Verify that the guest operating system is running.
• Because the VMware Tools installer is written in Perl, verify that Perl is installed in the guest operating system.
• For vSphere virtual machines, determine whether you have the latest version of VMware Tools. In the vSphere Client
inventory, select the virtual machine and click the Summary tab.
For more information about Linux distributions supported by Open VM Tools, see Open VM Tools (README) and the
Broadcom Compatibility Guide.
VMware Tar Tool for Linux virtual machine is feature-frozen at version 10.3.26, which includes important security features.
Therefore, the linux.iso included in Workstation Player is 10.3.26 and will not be updated. Due to this change, the Install/
Update/Reinstall VMware Tools menu is not available for the following Linux virtual machines:
• Modern Linux distributions that are not officially supported by tar tools:
– Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 and later releases.
– CentOS 8 and later releases.
– Oracle Linux 8 and later releases.

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 VMware Tools 13.0.0.0

– SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 and later releases.

• Linux kernel version is 4.0 or later, and the version of the installed Open VM Tools is 10.0.0 or later.
• Linux kernel version is 3.10 or later, and the version of the installed Open VM Tools is 10.3.0 or later.
For the Linux virtual machines that have Open VM Tools installed but are not in the scope mentioned in the preceding
bullet, Install/Update/Reinstall VMware Tools menu is enabled, so that you can install bundled tar tools on top of Open
VM Tools to get Shared Folder (HGFS) feature support.
For old Linux virtual machines that are not supported by Open VM Tools, follow these steps to install tar tools.
1. Select the menu command to mount the VMware Tools virtual disk on the guest operating system.
VMware Product Action
vSphere Client Right-click the virtual machine and select Guest OS > Install
VMware Tools...orGuest OS > Upgrade VMware Tools...
Fusion Virtual Machine > Install (or Upgrade) VMware Tools
Workstation Pro VM > Install (or Upgrade) VMware Tools
Workstation Player Player > Manage > Install (or Upgrade) VMware Tools

2. In the virtual machine, open a terminal window. Run the mount command with no arguments to determine whether
your Linux distribution automatically mounted the VMware Tools virtual CD-ROM image.
If the CD-ROM device is mounted, the CD-ROM device and its mount point are listed in a manner similar to the
following output:
/dev/cdrom on /mnt/cdrom type iso9660 (ro,nosuid,nodev)

If the VMware Tools virtual CD-ROM image is not mounted, mount the CD-ROM drive.
a) If a mount point directory does not already exist, create it.
mkdir /mnt/cdrom
Some Linux distributions use different mount point names. For example, on some distributions the mount point
is /media/VMware Tools rather than /mnt/cdrom. Modify the command to reflect the conventions that your
distribution uses.
b) Mount the CD-ROM drive.
mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom

Some Linux distributions use different device names or organize the /dev directory differently. If your CD-ROM
drive is not /dev/cdrom or if the mount point for a CD-ROM is not /mnt/cdrom, modify the command to reflect
the conventions that your distribution uses.
3. Change to a working directory, for example, /tmp.
cd /tmp
4. Delete any previous vmware-tools-distrib directory before you install VMware Tools.
The location of this directory depends on where you placed it during the previous installation. Often this directory is
placed in /tmp/vmware-tools-distrib.
List the contents of the mount point directory and note the file name of the VMware Tools tar installer.
lsmount-point

Uncompress the installer.

tar zxpf /mnt/cdrom/VMwareTools-x.x.x-yyyy.tar.gz

The value x.x.x is the product version number, and yyyy is the build number of the product release.
5. If necessary, unmount the CD-ROM image.
umount /dev/cdrom

If your Linux distribution automatically mounted the CD-ROM, you do not need to unmount the image.

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 VMware Tools 13.0.0.0

6. Run the installer and configure VMware Tools as a root user.

cd vmware-tools-distrib
sudo ./vmware-install.pl

Follow the prompts to accept the default values, if appropriate for your configuration.
Follow the instructions at the end of the script.
Depending on the features you use, these instructions can include restarting the X session, restarting networking,
logging in again, and starting the VMware User process. You can alternatively reboot the guest operating system to
accomplish all these tasks.
Usually, the vmware-config-tools.pl configuration file runs after the installer file finishes running. If you attempt
to install a tar installation over an RPM installation, or the reverse, the installer detects the previous installation and
must convert the installer database format before continuing.
NOTE
For newer Linux distributions, users are prompted to choose the integrated open-vm-tools.
If you upgraded VMware Tools as part of a vSphere upgrade, determine whether to upgrade the virtual machines in
your environment. For more information about the hardware available for different compatibility levels, see the vSphere
Virtual Machine Administration documentation.

Manually Install VMware Tools on macOS

You can install or upgrade VMware Tools on a macOS virtual machine using an installer assistant.
• Power on the virtual machine.
• Verify that the guest operating system is running.
If you use VMware Fusion or ESX on a computer with an Apple label, you can create Mac OS X Server (10.5 or later)
virtual machines and install VMware Tools.
For macOS VMs, the VMware Tools contains the following two kernel extension modules that are vital for certain features
when running on Fusion:
• com.vmware.kext.vmhgfs: For hgfs or shared folder support
• com.vmware.kext.VMwareGfx: For VMware video driver
NOTE
macOS Big Sur onwards, Apple has deprecated support for KEXT kernel extension modules. The KEXT
modules are not loaded automatically when you install the VMware tools. If you want to use the features
associated with the kernel extension modules, ensure that you manually allow the loading of VMware kernel
extension modules when prompted with an option.
1. Select the menu command to mount and open the VMware Tools virtual disc on the guest operating system.
VMware Product Menu Command
vSphere Client Right-click the virtual machine and select Guest OS > Install
VMware Tools... or Guest OS > Upgrade VMware Tools...
and select Interactive Tools Installation or Interactive Tools
Upgrade
Fusion Virtual Machine > Install (or Upgrade) VMware Tools

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 VMware Tools 13.0.0.0

2. In the vSphere Client inventory, right-click the virtual machine and select Guest > Install/Upgrade VMware Tools.
3. Right-click the virtual machine in the inventory and select All vCenter Actions > Guest OS > Install/Upgrade
VMware Tools.
4. Mount the VMware Tools virtual disc on the guest operating system.
VMware Product Action
vSphere Client Inventory > Virtual Machine > Guest > Install/Upgrade
VMware Tools
vSphere Web Client Right-click the virtual machine and select Guest OS > Install/
Upgrade VMware Tools.
1. To locate a virtual machine, select a datacenter, folder,
cluster, resource pool, host, or vApp.
2. Click the Virtual Machines tab.

5. If you are performing an upgrade or reinstallation, in the Install/Upgrade VMware Tools dialog box, select Interactive
Tools Installation or Interactive Tools Upgrade and click OK.
The process starts by mounting the VMware Tools virtual disc on the guest operating system.
6. On the host, from the VMware Fusion menu bar, select Virtual Machine > Install VMware Tools.
If an earlier version of VMware Tools is installed, the menu item is Update VMware Tools.
If the VMware Tools ISO file for the guest operating system is not available with the product, you get a pop-up with a
link to download the VMware Tools ISO file.
7. On the Connect VMware Tools installer CD pop-up, click Install
8. On the VMware Tools dialog box, click Install VMware Tools.
a) On the Welcome to the VMware Tools Installer page, click Continue.
b) Select Standard Install on 'Macintosh HD', and then click Install.
If this is a first-time installation on macOS Big Sur or later, a System Extension Blocked pop-up will appear for
each .kext in the VMware Tools release.
9. If you do not want to load the kernel extension modules, click OK.
NOTE
If you do not load the kernel extension modules, the features associated with the kernel extension modules
will not work.
10. If you want to load the kernel extension modules, perform the following steps.
a) Click Open Security Preference.
b) Unlock the Security & Privacy user interface.
c) For the System software from developer 'VMware, Inc.' was blocked from loading option, click Allow.
d) For the restart prompt, click Not now.
e) Re-lock the Security & Privacy user interface.
f) Close the Security & Privacy window.
The VMware Tools installation completes successfully.
11. Click Restart to reboot the system with the KEXT modules loaded.
12. Optionally, to verify that the VMware KEXT modules are loaded, log in and run the following command:
sudo kextstat --list-only | grep -i vmware

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Manually Install VMware Tools on Solaris

You can manually install or upgrade VMware Tools on a Solaris virtual machine using the command line.
• Power on the virtual machine.
• Verify that the guest operating system is running.
• Because the VMware Tools installer is written in Perl, verify that Perl is installed in the guest operating system.
• For vSphere virtual machines, determine whether you have the latest version of VMware Tools. In the vSphere Client
inventory, select the virtual machine and click the Summary tab.
1. VMware Product Action
vSphere Client Right-click the virtual machine and select Guest OS > Install
VMware Tools...
Fusion Virtual Machine > Install (or Upgrade) VMware Tools
Workstation Pro VM > Install (or Upgrade) VMware Tools
Workstation Player Player > Manage > Install (or Upgrade) VMware Tools

2. In the virtual machine, log in to the guest operating system as root and open a terminal window.
3. If the Solaris volume manager does not mount the CD-ROM under /cdrom/vmwaretools, restart the volume
manager.
/etc/init.d/volmgt stop
/etc/init.d/volmgt start

4. Change to a working directory, for example /tmp.

cd /tmp
5. Extract VMware Tools.
gunzip -c /cdrom/vmwaretools/vmware-solaris-tools.tar.gz | tar xf -

6. Run the installer and configure VMware Tools.

cd vmware-tools-distrib
./vmware-install.pl

Usually, the vmware-config-tools.pl configuration file runs after the installer finishes running.
7. Follow the prompts to accept the default values, if appropriate for your configuration.
8. Follow the instructions at the end of the script.
Depending on the features you use, these instructions can include restarting the X session, restarting networking,
logging again, and starting the VMware User process. You can alternatively reboot the guest operating system to
accomplish all these tasks.
If you use vCenter, the VMware Tools label on the Summary tab changes to OK.
If you upgraded VMware Tools as part of a vSphere upgrade, determine whether to upgrade the virtual machines in
your environment. For more information about the hardware available for different compatibility levels, see the vSphere
Virtual Machine Administration documentation.

Install Open VM Tools

Most Linux distributions include open-vm-tools and some distributions install open-vm-tools by default.
Like installing any other software on the guest, set up the package repository properly for the guest.
The open-vm-tools provided by Linux distrubutions meet the need of many users.

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 VMware Tools 13.0.0.0

NOTE
Different Linux distributions update their version of open-vm-tools at different times.
Users can update their open-vm-tools from the package repository provided by a Linux distribution. The install
instructions vary depending on the package management system used by a Linux distribution. Sometimes another
package repository can be configured to install a newer version from the OS vendor. For detailed instructions, refer to the
documentation of the OS vendor.
In general, open-vm-tools is supported for OSs that use three different package management systems:
• Ubuntu, Debian and Related OSes from this family use apt to install Debian (*.deb) packages
• Red Hat, Fedora and CentOS use dnf or yum to install RPM (*.rpm) packages
• SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE) and openSUSE use zypper to install RPM (*.rpm) packages
All distributions split the package into a system and a desktop component. The desktop component is useful on systems
that have a graphical UI (X11, Wayland, and so on). The package names are 'open-vm-tools' and 'open-vm-tools-
desktop'. SLE and openSUSE ship another package 'libvmtools' as a dependency. The package management
system automatically installs this dependency when 'open-vm-tools' or 'open-vm-tools-desktop' are installed.
1. Ubuntu, Debian, and Related OSes
1. Ensure that the package index is updated:
sudo apt-get update
2. If the VM has a GUI (X11, and so on), install or upgrade open-vm-tools-desktop:
sudo apt-get install open-vm-tools-desktop
3. Otherwise, use the command to install open-vm-tools:
sudo apt-get install open-vm-tools

2. RHEL, Fedora and CentOS

1. If the VM has a GUI (X11, and so on), install or upgrade open-vm-tools-desktop:
sudo yum install open-vm-tools-desktop
2. Otherwise, install open-vm-tools:
sudo yum install open-vm-tools

3. SLE and openSUSE

1. If the VM has a GUI (X11, and so on), install or upgrade open-vm-tools-desktop:
zypper install open-vm-tools-desktop
2. Otherwise, install open-vm-tools:
zypper install open-vm-tools

Upgrading VMware Tools

You can upgrade VMware Tools manually, or you can configure virtual machines to check for and install newer versions of
VMware Tools.
When you power on a virtual machine, the guest operating system checks the version of VMware Tools. The status bar of
your virtual machine displays a message when a new version is available.
For vSphere virtual machines,
A newer version of Tools is available for this VM
is displayed when the installed version of VMware Tools is out of date.

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 VMware Tools 13.0.0.0

In Windows virtual machines, you can set VMware Tools to notify you when an upgrade is available. If this notification
option is enabled, the VMware Tools icon in the Windows taskbar includes a yellow caution icon when a VMware Tools
upgrade is available.
To install a VMware Tools upgrade, you can use the same procedure that you used for installing VMware Tools the first
time. Upgrading VMware Tools means installing a new version.
For Windows and Linux guest operating systems, you can configure the virtual machine to automatically upgrade VMware
Tools. Although the version check is performed when you power on the virtual machine, on Windows guest operating
systems, the automatic upgrade occurs when you power off or restart the virtual machine. The status bar displays the
message Installing VMware Tools ... when an upgrade is in progress. The procedure is mentioned below.
NOTE
Upgrading VMware Tools on Windows guest operation systems automatically installs the WDDM graphics
drivers. The WDDM graphics driver allows the sleep mode available in guest OS power settings to adjust
the sleep options. For example, you can use the sleep mode setting Change when the computer sleeps to
configure your guest OS to automatically go to sleep mode after a certain time or prevent your guest OS from
automatically switching to sleep mode after being idle for some time.
Some features in a particular release of a VMware product might depend on installing or upgrading to the version of
VMware Tools included in that release. Upgrading to the latest version of VMware Tools is not always necessary. Newer
versions of VMware Tools are compatible with several host versions. To avoid unnecessary upgrades, evaluate whether
the added features and capabilities are necessary for your environment.

Configure Virtual Machines to Automatically Upgrade VMware Tools

You can configure virtual machines to automatically update VMware Tools.
• Verify that the virtual machines have a version of VMware Tools shipped with ESX 3.5 or later installed.
• Verify that the virtual machines are hosted on ESX 3.5 or later and vCenter 3.5 or later.
• Verify that the virtual machines are running a Linux or Windows guest OS that ESX 3.5 or later and vCenter 3.5 or later
support.
NOTE
Automatic VMware Tools upgrade is not supported for virtual machines with Solaris or NetWare guest operating
systems.
1. Right-click the virtual machine and click Edit Settings.
2. Click the VM Options tab and select VMware Tools.
3. Select Check and upgrade VMware Tools before each power on.
4. Click OK to save your changes and close the dialog box.

The next time the virtual machine is powered on, it checks the ESX host for a newer version of VMware Tools. If one is
available, it is installed and the guest operating system is restarted (if required).

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 VMware Tools 13.0.0.0

Manually Upgrade VMware Tools in Virtual Machines

You can upgrade VMware Tools in one or more virtual machines by using the vSphere Client.
1. Start the vSphere Client and log in to the vCenter.
2. Select the virtual machines.
a) Select a datacenter, folder, cluster, resource pool, or host.
b) Click the VMs tab.
3. Power on the virtual machines to upgrade.
4. Right-click your selections.
5. Select Guest OS > Install/Upgrade VMware Tools and click OK.
6. Select Interactive Upgrade or Automatic Upgrade and click Upgrade.
7. If you chose the interactive upgrade for a virtual machine with a Linux guest operating system, reboot the operating
system by running the reboot command from a command-line prompt so that you can use the new network modules.
NOTE
1. This upgrade procedure is not applicable for operating systems that are installed with OSPs or Open VM
Tools
2. If NSX Guest Introspection (GI) drivers are installed and you are using ‘Custom’ installation option in the
Tools installer for upgrade, ensure that all installed GI drivers are upgraded during upgrade.

Virtual machine has upgraded version of VMware Tools.

Automatically Upgrade VMware Tools in Virtual Machines

When you start an automatic upgrade of VMware Tools, you do not need to perform any operations in the guest operating
system that is running on the virtual machine. The automatic upgrade uninstalls the previous version of VMware Tools,
installs the latest version that is available for your ESX host.
The following requirements are for each virtual machine in the upgrade:
• Power on the virtual machine.
• Verify that the guest operating system is running.
• To determine whether you have the latest version of VMware Tools, look on the Summary tab for the virtual machine.

1. Right-click the virtual machine in the inventory and select All vCenter Actions > Guest OS > Install/Upgrade
VMware Tools.
2. Select Automatic Tools Upgrade.
3. Optional: In the Advanced Options text box, enter advanced options for the Windows or Linux guest operating
systems.
Option Action
Microsoft Windows Guest Operating Systems For the Windows guest operating system:
• Enter /s /v "/qn" /l
"Microsoft_Windows_location\filename.log"
to perform a silent upgrade of VMware Tools and create
a log file in the specified location on the guest operating
system.

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 VMware Tools 13.0.0.0

Option Action
Linux Guest Operating Systems For the Linux guest operating system:
• Enter --default to perform a silent upgrade of VMware
Tools and install the bin, lib, and doc files in the default
/usr directory.
This is the default behavior.
• Enter --
prefix=binary_location,lib_location,doc_locatio
to perform a silent upgrade of VMware Tools and install
thebin, lib, and doc files in the specified locations.

4. Click OK.

The VMware Tools label on the Summary tab changes to OK.

VMware Tools Installer Logging to Host

When GSS support team collects the vm-support bundle from customers, the installer log files are also included in it.
The installer logs reside in the virtual machine as well as the host. These log files are critical for diagnosis and triaging of
installation issues.
Install the VMware Tools version 11.0.0 and vSphere 7.0 (and later).
The Windows installer log files are all guest only and go to the %Temp% folder of the user account which launches the
bootstrapper setup application.
The log files generated are:
Install log (vminst.log): Contains VMware controlled components log output.
MSI log (vmmsi.log): Contains Microsoft MSI controlled log output. To enable or disable MSI logging output, see the
Microsoft knowledge base article KB 22330.

1. For new installation or uninstallation or upgrade, vmx.log.guest.level option is used to enable or disable the
installer logging to the host.
The allowed values to be set for this option are listed below:
Value Description
vmx.log.guest.level = "off" Logging to host is disabled.
This is the default value.
vmx.log.guest.level = "error" The installer logs vminst.log and vmmsi.log are not sent to
the host. Both the installer logs remain in the virtual machine.
vmx.log.guest.level = "warning" The installer logs vminst.log and vmmsi.log are not sent to
the host. Both the installer logs remain in the virtual machine.
vmx.log.guest.level = "notice" The installer logs vminst.log and vmmsi.log are not sent to
the host. Both the installer logs remain in the virtual machine.
vmx.log.guest.level = "info" The installer log vminst.log is sent to the host but
vmmsi.log remains in the virtual machine.
vmx.log.guest.level = "verbose" Both the installer logs vminst.log and vmmsi.log are sent to
the host.
vmx.log.guest.level = "trivia" Both the installer logs vminst.log and vmmsi.log are sent to
the host.

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 VMware Tools 13.0.0.0

NOTE
Guest admin can use "/mg" or "LOGMODE=G" command line options to control and suppress logging to the
host.
For example:
setup.exe /mg

setup.exe /v "LOGMODE=G"

setup.exe /S /v "/qn LOGMODE=G"

setup.exe /S /mg /v "/qn LOGMODE=G"

2. For auto upgrade, install-vmxGuestLogDisabled is read and parsed instead of vmxGuestLogDisabled in

tools.conf file.
The allowed values to be set for this setting are listed as below:
Value Description
install-vmxGuestLogDisabled = true The installer logs are not sent to the host during auto upgrade.
This is the default value.
install-vmxGuestLogDisabled = false The installer logs are sent to the host during auto upgrade.

NOTE
These settings go into the logging section. For example:
Under the [logging] group,
[logging]
install-vmxGuestLogDisabled = false

3. vMotion Impact:
a) New Host to Old Host:
For VMware Tools 11.0.0 and later versions, before vMotion, logs went to host guest log. After vMotion, logs
stopped going to the host.
For versions earlier to VMware Tools 11.0.0, before vMotion, logs went to guest %TEMP% folder only. After
vMotion, logs go to guest %TEMP% folder only.
b) Old Host to New Host:
For VMware Tools 11.0.0 and later versions, before vMotion, logs went to guest %TEMP% folder only. After
vMotion, logs go to guest %TEMP% folder only.
For versions earlier to VMware Tools 11.0.0, before vMotion, logs went to guest %TEMP% folder only. After
vMotion, logs go to guest %TEMP% folder only.
NOTE
vSphere administrator can set the VM option to redirect to host guest log after vMotion.

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 VMware Tools 13.0.0.0

Installing and Automatically Upgrading VMware Tools Component

Guest administrator can control the automatic upgrade, installation or removal of a component using the configuration
options provided in VMware Tools Configuration file (tools.conf).

1. Automatic Upgrade: The guest admin can control automatic upgrade using the allow-upgrade option.
The allow-upgrade option controls whether automatic upgrades (or re-installations) are allowed or not. This option
has the values:
• allow-upgrade=true: Enables automatic upgrade of VMware Tools.
This is the default value.
• allow-upgrade=false: Disables automatic upgrade of VMware Tools.

NOTE
The allow-upgrade option affects all the auto upgradable tools.
2. Add or Remove a Feature: The guest admin can control adding or removing a feature from VMware Tools using the
following options:
• allow-add-feature: This option controls whether adding a feature from VMware Tools is allowed or not. This
option has the values:
– allow-add-feature=true: Enables adding a feature from VMware Tools.
This is the default value.
– allow-add-feature=false: Disables adding a feature from VMware Tools.
• allow-remove-feature: This option controls whether removing a feature from VMware Tools is allowed or not.
This option has the values:
– allow-remove-feature=true: Enables removing a feature from VMware Tools.
This is the default value.
– allow-remove-feature=false: Disables removing a feature from VMware Tools.
NOTE
1. The allow-add-feature and allow-remove-feature options affect Windows tools only.
2. If the guest admin disables the automatic upgrade option (allow-upgrade=false), the feature
modification options (allow-add-feature and allow-remove-feature) get disabled as well.

Configuring VMware Tools Components

VMware Tools provides drivers and services that enhance the performance of virtual machines and make several
vSphere features easy to use. When VMware Tools is installed, you can configure many of these utilities and change their
characteristics.
You can use one of the following methods to configure VMware Tools.
• The command-line configuration utility in the guest operating system. You can modify VMware Tools settings, shrink
virtual disks, and connect and disconnect virtual devices.
• Custom scripts.
• Menu commands and dialog boxes.
• By editing the configuration file tools.conf
For information about installing and configuring VMware Tools in other VMware products, see the documentation for your
product. For information about VMware Tools in hosts that are provisioned with vSphere Auto Deploy, see the KB article
2004018.

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 VMware Tools 13.0.0.0

Using VMware Tools Configuration File

VMware Tools uses a configuration file called tools.conf to configure different operations such as logging, upgrade,
guest info, and so on.

Configuration File Location

Administrators can configure VMware Tools by editing this tools.conf file.
For example: Right click Start > All Programs > Accessories > Notepad and select Run as administrator.
NOTE
• If the configuration file does not exist, you can create it.
• The Application Data folder is hidden.
• The Program Data folder is hidden.
• There is no need to restart the tools service when the file is edited. The tools service will check this file every
5 seconds (by default) for changes and apply them.
The table provides the location of configuration file for various Guest OSs:

Guest OS Path

Windows XP, Windows Server 2000, and Windows Server 2003 C:\Documents and Settings\All Users
\Application Data\VMware\VMware Tools
\tools.conf
Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware Tools
\tools.conf
Linux, Solaris, and FreeBSD /etc/vmware-tools/tools.conf
FreeBSD with open-vm-tools 10.1.x or later /usr/local/share/vmware-tools/tools.conf
Mac OS X /Library/Application Support/VMware Tools/
tools.conf

Example Configuration File

VMware Tools installs an example configuration file in the same directory as the location for tools.conf . This file lists
the available options with possible values but commented out (with a leading '#' character), together with a description.
If you want to change the options, uncomment them and copy this file to tools.conf , or copy parts of it into the
tools.conf file.

Configure Network Interface Information

You can configure Network Interface information using the tools.conf configuration option.

Exclude Specific Interfaces from GuestInfo

To exclude specific interfaces from GuestInfo, set the option exclude-nics to a comma separated list of network
interfaces.
Example
[guestinfo]
exclude-nics=docker*,veth*
The configuration will exclude all interfaces with the names matching the patterns docker* and veth* from
GuestInfo.

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 VMware Tools 13.0.0.0

Set Primary and Low Priority Interfaces

The options primary-nics and low-priority-nics accept a list of comma separated patterns for interface names
which are considered as primary or low priority network interfaces. This will cause the interface information to be put on
top of the list for primary interfaces, and to the bottom for low priority interfaces.
Example
[guestinfo]
primary-nics=eth1
The configuration ensures that the IP address for eth1 will be sorted on top of the list of IP addresses.
Example
[guestinfo]
primary-nics=eth*
This configuration ensures that any address in the interfaces matching eth* is sorted on top of the list of IP
addresses.
Example
[guestinfo]
low-priority-nics=eth*
This configuration ensures that any address in the interfaces matching eth* is sorted at the bottom of the list
of IP addresses.
NOTE
After the limit of the number of interfaces to be reported is reached, low priority interfaces
are the first to be skipped.

Exclude Specific File Systems from Quiesced Snapshots

You can exclude specific file systems from a quiesced snapshot operation.
In Linux guest operating systems, the configuration setting excludedFileSystems allows file systems to be excluded
from a quiesced snapshot. This setting, if specified, is listed in the section of vmbackup of the tools.conf file. The
value of excludedFileSystems is a comma-separated list of glob-style patterns specifying the file systems to be
excluded from quiesced snapshots. The patterns may use '*' (wildcard) to represent any string of characters and '?" (joker)
to represent any single character. Note that the characters represented by these patters, '*' and '?" may include any
characters, including '/'
1. Open the tools.conf file from /etc/vmware-tools/tools.conf in your Linux guest operating system.
2. Add a vmbackup section in the file, if it does not exist.
[vmbackup]

3. In the vmbackup section, set excludedFileSystems to the preferred list of patterns.

excludedFileSystems = <list of patterns>

For example, this setting excludes the file system mounted at /fs1 from a quiesced snapshot operation.
[vmbackup]
excludedFileSystems = /fs1

As another example, this setting excludes all the file systems whose mount points start with /fs or /dev
from a quiesced snapshot operation.
[vmbackup]
excludedFileSystems = /fs*,/dev/*

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 VMware Tools 13.0.0.0

Security Considerations to Configure VMware Tools

You must ensure certain data security considerations while configuring VMware Tools as VMware Tools configuration
settings might expose some security threats or risks.
There are many kind of possible security threats while configuring VMware Tools components or features.
For example, VMware Tools enables you to connect virtual devices such as serial and parallel ports to virtual machines. A
connected device might be a potential channel of attack. To harden a virtual machine and reduce security risks as much
as possible, disable the VMware Tools features that might be vulnerable to security threats.
NOTE
For complete information about securely deploying VMware vSphere in a production environment, including
security recommendations for hosts, virtual machines, management components, and a networking
infrastructure, see the vSphere Hardening Guide. VMware Tools settings relate only to the virtual machine
aspect of a deployment.
Virtual machines are encapsulated in a small number of files. Of these, the configuration file (.vmx file) governs the
performance of the virtual hardware and other settings. You can use several methods to see and modify the configuration
settings:
• Use the vSphere Web Client to edit virtual machine settings. In the vSphere Web Client, editing these configuration
parameters is an advanced option in the virtual machine Edit Settings dialog box.
• Use the vSphere Host Client to edit virtual machine settings. In the vSphere Host Client, editing these configuration
parameters is an advanced option in the virtual machine Edit Settings dialog box.
• Use a vSphere API-based tool, such as Power CLI, to view and modify .vmx parameters.
After you edit a setting, the change does not take effect until you restart the virtual machine.
You can eliminate several potential threats by setting parameters appropriately in the corresponding VMware Tools
parameters to set in the virtual machine's .vmx file. The defaults for many of these parameters are already set to protect
virtual machines from these threats.

Threats: Unprivileged User Account Access

Copy and paste
By default, the ability to copy and paste text, graphics, and files is disabled, as is the ability to drag and drop files. When this
option is enabled, you can copy and paste rich text, and depending on the VMware product, graphics and files from your
clipboard to the guest operating system in a virtual machine. That is, when the console window of a virtual machine gains
focus, nonprivileged users and processes running in the virtual machine can access the clipboard on the computer where
the console window is running. To avoid risks associated with this feature, retain the following .vmx settings, which disable
copying and pasting:
isolation.tools.copy.disable = "TRUE"
isolation.tools.paste.disable = "TRUE"

Threats: Virtual Devices

Connecting and modifying devices
By default, the ability to connect and disconnect devices is disabled. When this feature is enabled, users and processes
without root or administrator privileges can connect devices such as network adapters and CD-ROM drives, and they can
modify device settings. That is, a user can connect a disconnected CD-ROM drive and access sensitive information on the
media that is in the drive. A user can also disconnect a network adapter to isolate the virtual machine from its network, which
is a denial of service. To avoid risks associated with this feature, retain the following .vmx settings, which disable the ability
to connect and disconnect devices or to modify device settings:
isolation.device.connectable.disable = "TRUE"
isolation.device.edit.disable = "TRUE"

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 VMware Tools 13.0.0.0

Threats: Virtual Machine Information Flow

VMX file size
By default the configuration file is limited to a size of 1 MB because uncontrolled size for the file can lead to a denial of service
if the datastore runs out of disk space. Informational messages are sometimes sent from the virtual machine to the .vmx file.
These setinfo messages define virtual machine characteristics or identifiers by writing name-value pairs to the file. You might
need to increase the size of the file if large amounts of custom information must be stored in the file. The property name is
tools.setInfo.sizeLimit, and you specify the value in kilobytes. Retain the following .vmx setting:
tools.setInfo.sizeLimit = "1048576"

Sending performance counters into PerfMon

You can integrate virtual machine performance counters for CPU and memory into PerfMon for Linux and Microsoft Windows
guest operating systems. This provides detailed information about the physical host available to the guest operating system.
A malicious user could potentially use this information to perform further attacks on the host. By default this feature is
disabled. Retain the following .vmx setting to prevent host information from being sent to the virtual machine:
tools.guestlib.enableHostInfo = "FALSE"

This setting blocks some but not all metrics. If you set this property to FALSE , the following metrics are blocked:
• GUESTLIB_HOST_CPU_NUM_CORES
• GUESTLIB_HOST_CPU_USED_MS
• GUESTLIB_HOST_MEM_SWAPPED_MB
• GUESTLIB_HOST_MEM_SHARED_MB
• GUESTLIB_HOST_MEM_USED_MB
• GUESTLIB_HOST_MEM_PHYS_MB
• GUESTLIB_HOST_MEM_PHYS_FREE_MB
• GUESTLIB_HOST_MEM_KERN_OVHD_MB
• GUESTLIB_HOST_MEM_MAPPED_MB
• GUESTLIB_HOST_MEM_UNMAPPED_MB
Features not exposed in vSphere that could cause vulnerabilities
Because VMware virtual machines run in many VMware products in addition to vSphere, some virtual machine parameters
do not apply in a vSphere environment. Although these features do not appear in vSphere user interfaces, disabling them
reduces the number of vectors through which a guest operating system could access a host. Use the following .vmx setting
to disable these features:
isolation.tools.unity.push.update.disable = "TRUE"
isolation.tools.ghi.launchmenu.change = "TRUE"
isolation.tools.ghi.autologon.disable = "TRUE"
isolation.tools.hgfsServerSet.disable = "TRUE"
isolation.tools.memSchedFakeSampleStats.disable = "TRUE"
isolation.tools.getCreds.disable = "TRUE"

Using Custom VMware Tools Scripts

You can associate custom VMware Tools scripts with power operations.
When VMware Tools is installed, one or more default scripts run on the guest whenever you change the power state of
the virtual machine. You change the power state by using menu commands or by clicking the Suspend, Resume, Power
On, and Power Off buttons. For example, when you power off a virtual machine, by default the poweroff-vm-default
script runs.

Default VMware Tools Scripts

VMware Tools includes one or more default scripts for each power state. The default script behavior partially depends on
the guest operating system.

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 VMware Tools 13.0.0.0

Microsoft Windows Guest Operating Systems

For most of the Microsoft's Windows guest operating systems, the default script for suspending a virtual machine releases
the IP address of the virtual machine. The default script for resuming a virtual machine renews the IP address of the
virtual machine. This behavior affects only the virtual machines configured to use DHCP.
On Windows guest operating systems, the default scripts are located in the Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools
folder.
NOTE
You cannot run scripts on NetWare, Windows NT, Me, Windows 98, and Windows 95 guest operating systems.

Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, and Free BSD Guest Operating Systems

On most Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, and FreeBSD guest operating systems, the default script that runs when you suspend
a virtual machine stops networking for the virtual machine. The default script that runs when you resume a virtual machine
starts networking for the virtual machine.
On Linux, Solaris, and FreeBSD guest operating systems, the default scripts are located in the /etc/vmware-tools
directory. On Mac OS X operating systems the default scripts are located in the /Library/Application Support/
VMware Tools directory.

Table 5: Default VMware Tools Scripts

Script Name Description

poweroff-vm-default Runs when the virtual machine is being powered off or reset.
Has no effect on networking for the virtual machine.
poweron-vm-default Runs when the virtual machine is being powered on rather than
resumed.
Also runs after virtual machine restarts.
Has no effect on networking for the virtual machine.
resume-vm-default Runs when the virtual machine is resumed after it was suspended.
On Windows guest operating systems, if the virtual machine is
configured to use DHCP, this script renews the IP address of the
virtual machine.
On Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, and FreeBSD guest operating
systems, this script starts networking for the virtual machine.
suspend-vm-default Runs when the virtual machine is being suspended.
On Windows guest operating systems, if the virtual machine is
configured to use DHCP, this script releases the IP address of the
virtual machine.
On Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, and FreeBSD , this script stops
networking for the virtual machine.

For information about how to configure power operations, see the documentation for the VMware product you are using.

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 VMware Tools 13.0.0.0

Custom VMware Tools Scripts for Windows

For Windows guest operating systems, you can write scripts to automate guest operating system operations when you
change the power state of a virtual machine.
• Familiarize yourself with the default VMware Tools scripts. For more information, see Default VMware Tools Scripts.
• If you plan to script commands and need to know the exit codes, see Common Exit Codes.
For Windows guest operating systems, you can write new scripts or modify default scripts, save them with new names,
and configure VMware Tools to use your custom script instead of the default script.
Scripts are run by the VMware Tools service, or daemon (vmtoolsd). Because vmtoolsd is run as System on Windows,
the scripts are run in a separate session from the session of the logged-in user. The VMware Tools daemon does not
detect desktop sessions, which means that it cannot display graphical applications. Do not attempt to use custom scripts
to display graphical applications.
NOTE
You cannot run scripts on NetWare, Windows NT, Me, Windows 98, and Windows 95 guest operating systems.
1. Write a new script or modify default scripts and save them as .bat files with new names.
The default scripts for power-on and power-off operations are placeholders only. These scripts are located in the
Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools directory.
The scripts for suspend and resume operations contain a line that releases or renews the IP address for the virtual
machine. You must add this line first when you write custom scripts for these operations.

Default Script Required IP Address Line

suspend @%SYSTEMROOT%\system32\ipconfig /release

resume @%SYSTEMROOT%\system32\ipconfig /renew

2. Open a command prompt in the guest operating system.

3. Change directories to the VMware Tools installation directory.
The default installation directory is C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools.
4. Type the command to enable the script.

VMwareToolboxCmd.exe script script-name enable

5. Type the command to use the custom script that you created.

VMwareToolboxCmd.exe script script-name set script-path

For script-path, use the full path to the file, such as C:\Temp\poweron-my-vm.bat.
6. Type the command to verify that the custom script that you specified is now being used.

VMwareToolboxCmd.exe script script-name current

The VMware Tools service runs the script whenever the specified power operation occurs.

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 VMware Tools 13.0.0.0

Custom VMware Tools Scripts for Multiple OSs Except Windows

For Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, and FreeBSD guest operating systems, you can write scripts to automate guest operating
system operations when you change the power state of a virtual machine.
• Familiarize yourself with the default VMware Tools scripts. For more information, see Default VMware Tools Scripts.
• On Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, and FreeBSD guest operating systems, if you plan to test, edit, or disable the running of
a script, log in as root.
• If you plan to script commands and need to know what the exit codes are, see Common Exit Codes.
For Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, and FreeBSD guests, you can write scripts and place them in a certain directory, and
then VMware Tools runs your scripts in addition to the default scripts. For power-on and resume operations, the default
scripts run before the custom scripts. For suspend and power-off, the default scripts run after the custom scripts. This way,
VMware Tools stops services only after the custom scripts finish their work, and restores the same services before the
custom scripts attempt to use the services.)
Scripts are run by the VMware Tools service, or daemon (vmtoolsd). Because vmtoolsd is run as root on Linux,
Solaris, and FreeBSD, the scripts are run in a separate session from the session of the logged-in user. The VMware Tools
daemon does not detect desktop sessions, which means that it cannot display graphical applications. Do not attempt to
use custom scripts to display graphical applications.
1. Log in to the guest operating system as root.
2. Write the custom scripts and place them in the correct directory, as instructed by the comments in the default script
files for each power operation.

Guest Operating System Directory

Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD /etc/vmware-tools

Mac OS X /Library/Application Support/VMware Tools

Do not make changes to the default scripts.

The VMware Tools service runs the script whenever the specified power operation occurs.

Disable VMware Tools Script

The default scripts for suspending and resuming a virtual machine are interdependent. If you disable the script for one of
these actions, you must also disable the script for the other action.
Log in as root on Linux, Solaris, and FreeBSD guest operating systems, to test, edit, or disable a script.
NOTE
You cannot run scripts on NetWare, Windows NT, Me, Windows 98, and Windows 95 guest operating systems.

1. Open a command prompt or terminal in the guest operating system.

2. Change to the VMware Tools installation directory.
Operating System Default Path
Windows C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools
Linux and Solaris /usr/sbin
FreeBSD /usr/local/sbin
Mac OS X /Library/Application Support/VMware Tools
3. Type the command to disable the script.

utility-namescriptscript-namedisable

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Option Action
utility-name On Windows Use VMwareToolboxCmd.exe.
utility-name On Linux, Solaris, and FreeBSD Use vmware-toolbox-cmd.
utility-name On MAC OS Use vmware-tools-cli.
script-name Use power, resume, suspend, or shutdown.

4. Optional: If you disabled the script for suspending a virtual machine, repeat this procedure for resuming the virtual
machine.
5. Optional: If you disabled the script for resuming a virtual machine, also disable the script for suspending the virtual
machine.

Using VMware Tools Configuration Utility

The VMware Tools configuration utility is a command-line interface that you can use in the guest operating system to
modify VMware Tools settings, shrink virtual disks, connect and disconnect virtual devices.
The VMware Tools configuration utility provides a command-line interface for functionality that was previously available
only in the VMware Tools control panel. The name of this program depends on the guest operating system.

Table 6: VMware Tools Configuration Utilities for Guest Operating Systems

Guest Operating System Utility

Windows VMwareToolboxCmd.exe
Mac OS X vmware-tools-cli
Because the VMware Tools installer does not modify any PATH
environment variables on Mac OS X operating systems, you must
type ./ before the command.
Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris vmware-toolbox-cmd

Use the utility's help command to display complete usage information and syntax.
The VMware Tools configuration utility is included in vSphere 4.1 and later.
The VMware Tools configuration utility is included in the following VMware products:
• VMware vSphere 4.1 and later
• VMware Workstation 7.0 and later
• VMware Fusion 3.0 and later
• VMware Player 3.0 and later
• VMware ACE 2.6 and later

Enable Periodic Time Synchronization

When you enable periodic time synchronization, VMware Tools sets the time of the guest operating system same as the
host time.
• Disable other periodic time synchronization mechanisms. For example, some guests might have NTP or Win32Time
clock synchronization turned on by default.
• If you plan to script the commands used in this procedure and need to know what the exit codes are, see Common Exit
Codes.

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 VMware Tools 13.0.0.0

NOTE
Mac OS X guest operating systems use NTP and do not become out of sync with the host. For Mac OS X guest
operating systems, there is no need to turn on VMware Tools time synchronization.
After time synchronization occurs, VMware Tools checks once every minute to determine whether the clocks on the guest
and host operating systems still match. If not, the clock on the guest operating system is synchronized to match the clock
on the host.
If the clock on the guest operating system falls behind the clock on the host, VMware Tools moves the clock on the guest
forward to match the clock on the host. If the clock on the guest operating system is ahead of the clock on the host,
VMware Tools causes the clock on the guest to run more slowly until the clocks are synchronized.
Native time synchronization software, such as Network Time Protocol (NTP) for Linux and the Mac OS X, or Microsoft
Windows Time Service (Win32Time) for Windows, is typically more accurate than VMware Tools periodic time
synchronization. Use only one form of periodic time synchronization in your guests. If you are using native time
synchronization software, disable VMware Tools periodic time synchronization.
Regardless of whether you turn on VMware Tools periodic time synchronization, time synchronization occurs after certain
operations:
• When you start the VMware Tools daemon, such as during a reboot or power on operation
• When you resume a virtual machine from a suspend operation
• After you revert to a snapshot
• After you shrink a disk
When the operating system starts or restarts, and when you first turn on periodic time synchronization, if the
time.synchronize.tools.startup.backward parameter is not enabled in the .vmx file, the guest clock is set to
forward. For other events, synchronization is forward in time.
To disable time synchronization completely, you must edit the configuration file (.vmx file) of the virtual machine and set
several synchronization properties to FALSE.
1. Open a command prompt or terminal in the guest operating system.
2. Change to the VMware Tools installation directory.
Operating System Default Path
Windows C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools
Linux and Solaris /usr/sbin
FreeBSD /usr/local/sbin
Mac OS X /Library/Application Support/VMware Tools
3. Type the command to determine whether time synchronization is enabled.

utility-nametimesync status

For utility-name use the guest-specific program name.

Operating System Program Name
Windows VMwareToolboxCmd.exe
Linux, Solaris, and FreeBSD vmware-toolbox-cmd
MAC OS X vmware-tools-cli
4. Type the command to enable or disable periodic time synchronization.

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utility-nametimesyncsubcommand

For subcommand, use enable or disable.

The VMware Tools service enables or disables periodic time synchronization, as you specified. Disabling periodic time
synchronization does not disable all VMware Tools time synchronization.
If you need to keep a fictitious time in a virtual machine, such that the clock in the guest operating system is never
synchronized with that on the host, disable time synchronization completely for the guest operating system.

Disable Periodic Time Synchronization

A virtual machine occasionally synchronizes time with the host even if you do not turn on periodic time synchronization. To
completely disable time synchronization, you must set some properties in the virtual machine configuration file.
Power off the virtual machine.
1. Open the configuration (.vmx) file of the virtual machine in a text editor.
2. Add lines for the time synchronization properties and set the properties to FALSE .
tools.syncTime = "FALSE"
time.synchronize.continue = "FALSE"
time.synchronize.restore = "FALSE"
time.synchronize.resume.disk = "FALSE"
time.synchronize.shrink = "FALSE"
time.synchronize.tools.startup = "FALSE"

3. Save and close the file.

Power on the virtual machine.

Connect or Disconnect a Virtual Device

You can connect and disconnect removable devices such as floppy drives, DVD/CD-ROM drives, ISO images, USB
devices, sound adapters, and network adapters.
If you plan to script commands to connect or disconnect a virtual device, and for the exit codes are, see Common Exit
Codes.
• Some devices cannot be shared between the host and guest operating systems or between two guest operating
systems. For example, only one virtual machine or the host can access the physical CD-ROM drive at any one time.
• The controls for connecting and disconnecting devices might not be available, depending on whether your system
administrator has enabled them.
You can run the configuration utility to connect and disconnect virtual devices. For security reasons, this ability is disabled
by default. To connect or disconnect devices, you must first change the settings in the configuration file.
1. Configure the virtual machine to allow devices to connect or disconnect.
a) Edit the configuration (.vmx) file of the virtual machine with a text editor.
b) If the following properties are not listed in the file, add them and set them to FALSE.
isolation.device.connectable.disable = "FALSE"
isolation.device.edit.disable = "FALSE"

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c) Save and close the file.

2. Open a command prompt or terminal in the guest operating system.
3. Change to the VMware Tools installation directory.
Operating System Default Path
Windows C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools
Linux and Solaris /usr/sbin
FreeBSD /usr/local/sbin
Mac OS X /Library/Application Support/VMware Tools
4. Type utility-name device list to list available devices.
For utility-name, use the guest-specific application name.
Operating System Utility Name
Windows VMwareToolboxCmd.exe
Linux, Solaris, and FreeBSD vmware-toolbox-cmd
Mac OS X vmware-tools-cli
5. Optional: Type the command to determine whether a device is connected.

utility-namedevice statusdevice-name

For device-name, use one of the names displayed when you used the list subcommand.
6. Type the command to connect or disconnect the device.

utility-namedevicedevice-namesubcommand

Option Action
device-name Use one of the names displayed when you used the list
subcommand.
subcommand Use enable or disable.

The device is connected or disconnected, as you specified.

View Virtual Machine Status Information

You can view information about host time and CPU speed. For virtual machines hosted in a vSphere environment, you
can view additional information about memory and CPU reservations and limits.
• Determine the status information to display. For more information, see Display Status Information.
• If you plan to script commands and need to know the exit codes, see Common Exit Codes.
1. Open a command prompt or terminal in the guest operating system.
2. Change to the VMware Tools installation directory.
Operating System Default Path
Windows C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools
Linux and Solaris /usr/sbin

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Operating System Default Path

FreeBSD /usr/local/sbin
Mac OS X /Library/Application Support/VMware Tools
3. Type the command to display the status information.

utility-namestatsubcommand

Option Action
utility-name (On Windows) Use VMwareToolboxCmd.exe.
utility-name (On Linux, Solaris, and FreeBSD) Use vmware-toolbox-cmd.
utility-name (On Mac OS X) Use vmware-tools-cli.
subcommand Use hosttime or, speed, one of the subcommands available
for virtual machines hosted in a vSphere environment.

Display Status Information

When a virtual machine is running on an ESX host, you can use the vmware-toolbox-cmd help stat command to
display information such as host time and CPU speed. Additional subcommands are available for virtual machines in a
vSphere environment.

Table 7: Subcommands for the stat Command

Subcommand Name Description

hosttime Displays the date and time on the host.

speed Displays the CPU speed, in MHz.
balloon Displays the amount of memory that is currently reclaimed from
the virtual machine through ballooning, in megabytes.
swap Displays the current amount of memory swapped out to the virtual
machine's swap file, in megabytes.
memlimit Displays memory limit information, in megabytes.
memres Displays memory reservation information, in megabytes.
cpures Displays CPU reservation information, in MHz.
cpulimit Displays CPU limit information, in MHz.
sessionid Displays the current session ID.

Table 8: Subcommands for the stat Command

Subcommand Name Description

hosttime Displays the date and time on the host.

speed Displays the CPU speed, in MHz.

Common Exit Codes

You can use exit codes to integrate the VMware Tools configuration utility commands with a scripting tool.

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The following table lists the common error codes defined in toolbox-cmd. Each subcommand may return other Windows
or Linux error codes.

Table 9: Exit Codes

Code Number Applicable Command Description

0 All commands The command was successful.

1 All commands A error occurred.
For the shrink command, 1 indicates that although shrinking is
enabled, the shrink command cannot be carried out.
64 All commands The command-line argument is not valid (EX_USAGE).
69 upgrade For the device command, 69 indicates that the specified device
timesync does not exist. Use the list subcommand to display valid names
config of devices.
device For the stat command, 69 indicates that the program could not
stat communicate with the host (EX_UNAVAILABLE).
shrink
70 globalconf There is an internal software error (EX_SOFTWARE).
gueststore
71 Not used There is a system error (EX_OSERR).
72 device A critical OS file is missing (EX_OSFILE).
shrink
script
75 upgrade The host does not support the query, perhaps because the host is
stat not an ESX host (EX_TEMPFAIL).
shrink
script
config
globalconf
logging
device
77 script Permission error occurred (EX_NOPERM).
disk
upgrade
globalconf
logging
info
config
130 Shrink SIGNT received (VM_EX_INTERRUPT).

Query Information using GuestInfo Variable

You can use the 'guestinfo' variable to query information such as version description, version string, build number, and so
on.
The following table list down the 'guestinfo' variables to query information:

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Table 10: VMware Tools 'guestinfo' Variables

Command Description

Windows Guest: Reports the version description.

vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.vmtools.description"
rpctool.exe "info-get guestinfo.vmtools.description"
Linux Guest:
vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.vmtools.description"
vmware-rpctool "info-get guestinfo.vmtools.description"
Windows Guest: Reports the version string.
vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.vmtools.versionString"
rpctool.exe "info-get guestinfo.vmtools.versionString"
Linux Guest:
vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.vmtools.versionString"
vmware-rpctool "info-get guestinfo.vmtools.versionString"
Windows Guest: Reports the version number.
vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.vmtools.versionNumber"
rpctool.exe "info-get guestinfo.vmtools.versionNumber"
Linux Guest:
vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.vmtools.versionNumber"
vmware-rpctool "info-get guestinfo.vmtools.versionNumber"
Windows Guest: Reports the build number.
vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.vmtools.buildNumber"
rpctool.exe "info-get guestinfo.vmtools.buildNumber"
Linux Guest:
vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.vmtools.buildNumber"
vmware-rpctool "info-get guestinfo.vmtools.buildNumber"
Windows Guest: Reports the error code of last VMware Tools
vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.toolsInstallErrCode" installation.
rpctool.exe "info-get guestinfo.toolsInstallErrCode" NOTE
Linux Guest: VMware Tools installation and upgrade
vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.toolsInstallErrCode" on Windows often require a reboot of the
vmware-rpctool "info-get guestinfo.toolsInstallErrCode" guest operating system for the changes to
take effect. If a reboot is required but has
not occurred, the guestinfo variable gue
stinfo.toolsInstallErrCode is
set to 3010.

Windows Guest: Reports the running version of the driver.

vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.driver.[driver For example:
name].version" vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get
rpctool.exe "info-get guestinfo.driver.[driver guestinfo.driver.pvscsi.version" returns
name].version" 1.3.10.0
Linux Guest:
vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.driver.[driver
name].version"
vmware-rpctool "info-get guestinfo.driver.[driver
name].version"

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Command Description

Windows Guest: Reports the IP address of Guest OS.

vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.ip"
rpctool.exe "info-get guestinfo.ip"
Linux Guest:
vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.ip"
vmware-rpctool "info-get guestinfo.ip"
Windows Guest: Reports information about applications that are
vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.appInfo" running inside the guest.
rpctool.exe "info-get guestinfo.appInfo"
Linux Guest:
vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.appInfo"
vmware-rpctool "info-get guestinfo.appInfo"

For customized variables, you can use the command:

vmtoolsd --cmd "info-set guestinfo.foo bar

Configure appInfo
The appInfo plug-in collects information about applications running inside the guest and publishes that information to the
management layers. appInfo is installed by default as a part of VMware Tools installation in a virtual machine (VM).
appInfo can be managed (enabled or disabled) at both VM and Host levels.

Using the VMware Tools Configuration File at VM Level

The appInfo plug-in collects the information about running applications inside the guest and publishes the information to a
guest variable. For each application running inside the guest, the name and version information is captured and published
by the plug-in. This application information is collected by default.

1. Retrieving the data: The data collected by appInfo plug-in is retrieved as follows:
• From inside the guest
Linux guest
• vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestnfo.appInfo"
• vmware-rpctool "info-get guestinfo.appInfo"
Windows guest
• rpctool.exe "info-get guestinfo.appInfo"
2. Changing the poll-interval: The appInfo plug-in captures the information in every 30 minutes by default.
NOTE
The default value is changed to '6 hours' in VMware Tools 11.1.0.
Guest admin can configure this poll-interval at anytime as follows:
• Linux
vmware-toolbox-cmd config set appinfo poll-interval <new value in seconds>
• Windows
VMwareToolboxCmd.exe config set appinfo poll-interval <new value in seconds>

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3. Disabling the appInfo plug-in: Guest admin can disable the appInfo plug-in as follows:
• Linux guest
vmware-toolbox-cmd config set appinfo disabled true or
vmware-toolbox-cmd config set appinfo poll-interval 0
• Windows guest
VMwareToolboxCmd.exe config set appinfo disabled true or
VMwareToolboxCmd.exe config set appinfo poll-interval 0

Using the ESXCLI plug-in at the Host Level

In the ESXCLI, a plug-in is added under 'vm' namespace to enable or disable appinfo feature at the host level. By default,
this feature is enabled at the ESX host.
Install ESX version 7.0 Update 1 or later.
This plug-in provides two command options at the host level:
• get option: Queries the configstore and returns the current state of the appinfo feature.
esxcli vm appinfo get
• set option: Updates the configstore and instantly notifies all the running virtual machines that the feature state is
modified.
• Enabling the appinfo feature at host:
esxcli vm appinfo set --enabled true
--enabled is a mandatory option for set command.
Valid values for enabling the appinfo feature are: "1", "yes", "y", "true", "True", "t", "T"
• Disabling the appinfo feature at host:
esxcli vm appinfo set --enabled false
--enabled is a mandatory option for set command.
Valid values for enabling the appinfo feature are: "0", "no", "n", "false", "False", "f", "F"
NOTE
This plug-in can also be invoked by:
1. Using a PowerCLI script to enable or disable the appinfo feature at the host, cluster, and datacenter
levels. For details on its usage with examples, see the KB article 81033.
2. Using /bin/localcli utility on ESX host. However, /bin/localcli can only be invoked locally and
cannot be invoked remotely.

Configure ContainerInfo for Linux

The containerinfo plug-in gathers the list of running containers inside the Linux guest.

1. Retrieving data: For Linux guest, the data collected by containerinfo plug-in is retrieved as follows:
vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.vmtools.containerinfo"

2. Changing poll-interval: For Linux guest, the containerinfo plug-in captures information in every 6 hours by default.
Guest admin can configure this poll-interval at anytime as follows:
vmware-toolbox-cmd config set containerinfo poll-interval <new value in seconds>

To revert the containerinfo poll-interval to default value, run the following command:
vmware-toolbox-cmd config remove containerinfo poll-interval

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3. Querying container information: For Linux guest, the number of containers queried per namespace can be limited to
a value as follows:
vmware-toolbox-cmd config set containerinfo max-containers <value>

The default value for max-containers is 100. The containerinfo plug-in will stop collecting information after it collects
information from 100 containers.
4. Communicate with docker daemon (docker-unix-socket): The docker unix socket is used to communicate with the
docker daemon. Default is /var/run/docker.sock
NOTE
• This key is specific to docker users.
• The default value can be overridden using vmware-toolbox-cmd:
vmware-toolbox-cmd config set docker-unix-socket <path of the socket>
5. Communicate with containerd gRPC server (containerd-unix-socket): The containerd unix socket is used to
communicate with the containerd gRPC server. Default is /run/containerd/containerd.sock
• The default value can be overridden using vmware-toolbox-cmd:
vmware-toolbox-cmd config set containerd-unix-socket <path of the socket>

6. Disabling the containerinfo plug-in:

To disable the containerinfo gather loop set the poll-interval=0
vmware-toolbox-cmd config set containerinfo poll-interval 0

Configure Service Discovery

The Service Discovery plug-in connects with the vRealize Operations Manager product. This plug-in provides fabric
admins with more information to better manage VMs at large scale. VMware Tools already collects some data from VMs,
but it is not sufficient. This plug-in collects additional data and relays it to vRealize Operations Manager if the management
feature is enabled. The plug-in is enabled by default and can be disabled at any time by the guest administrator inside the
guest.
Ensure that 'vsock' driver is present or installed in windows guest successfully.

1. Disabling the Service Discovery plug-in: This plug-in can be disabled using one of the following approaches:
• Using the toolbox command utility, execute the following commands:
– For Linux
vmware-toolbox-cmd config set servicediscovery disabled true
– For Windows
VMwareToolboxCmd.exe config set servicediscovery disabled true

• Open tools.conf file and manually add the following section:

[servicediscovery]
disabled = true

2. Enabling the Service Discovery plug-in: This plug-in can be enabled using one of the following approaches:
• Using the toolbox command utility, execute the following commands:
– For Linux
vmware-toolbox-cmd config set servicediscovery disabled false
– For Windows

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VMwareToolboxCmd.exe config set servicediscovery disabled false

• Open tools.conf file and manually add the following section:

[servicediscovery]
disabled = false

Configure VMware Time Provider for Windows

A new time provider plug-in vmwTimeProvider is provided for Microsoft Windows native time synchronization service
'W32Time' running inside vSphere VMs. The plug-in interacts with the precision clock virtual device to provide the
underlying ESX host time, as an alternative to NTP and Active Directory-based time sources.
Ensure to add a precision clock virtual device to the VM before using the vmwTimeProvider plug-in.
NOTE
For information on how to add a precision clock virtual device to a VM, see the vSphere Virtual Machine
Administrationd.

• Enable vmwTimeProvider plug-in:

To add this plug-in, explicitly select the VMware Time Provider component in the VMware Tools installer setup during
installation. By default, this component is deselected.
• Disable vmwTimeProvider plug-in:
To remove this plug-in, modify the installation and deselect the VMware Time Provider component in the VMware
Tools installer.
You can check the status of the plug-in post installation by running the following w32time command:
w32tm /query /status

Use GuestStore
The GuestStore feature provides a simple and flexible mechanism to distribute VMware specific or custom content from a
GuestStore repository to multiple guests simultaneously.
To use GuestStore feature, virtual machines must meet the following requirements:
• Virtual machines with Windows guest operating systems must be running on vSphere 7.0 U2 and later versions plus
VMware Tools 11.2.5 and later.
• Virtual machines with Linux guest operating systems must be running on vSphere 7.0 U3 and later versions plus open-
vm-tools 11.3.0 and later.
• The file that is distributed through GuestStore must be 512 MB or smaller.
For more information about configuring ESX hosts for the GuestStore feature, see the "Distributing Content with
GuestStore" section in the vSphere Virtual Machine Administration documentation.

Get Resource Content

When the GuestStore repository has been configured on ESX host, resources from the GuestStore repository can be
easily accessed using VMware Tools command line utility.
You can fetch a resource content from the GuestStore repository using the VMware Tools Toolbox command line utility.
"C:\Program Files\VMware\VMwareTools\VMwareToolboxCmd.exe" gueststore getcontent <resource path>
<output file>

/usr/bin/vmware-toolbox-cmd gueststore getcontent <resource path> <output file>

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where, <resource path> is the path under the GuestStore repository datastore root URL.
For example:
"C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools\VMwareToolboxCmd.exe" gueststore getcontent /vmware/apps/
vmtools/windows64/metadata.json C:\Temp\metadata.json
"C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools\VMwareToolboxCmd.exe" gueststore getcontent /vmware/
configurations/vmtools/windows/tools.conf C:\Temp\tools.conf

Guest admin can use the following tools.conf settings to control access to the GuestStore repository.
[guestStore]

disabled = false (By default, access to the GuestStore repository is enabled when configured on the ESX host side)

adminOnly = false (By default, admin privilege is not required to access the GuestStore repository)

If disabled = true, then all guest access to the GuestStore repository is disabled including VMware Tools GuestStore
based upgrade and GlobalConf features.
When GuestStore access is enabled (disabled = false), setting adminOnly = true restricts that only administrators or
root users can get content from the GuestStore repository by running the following command:
• Windows
"C:\Program Files\VMware\VMwareTools\VMwareToolboxCmd.exe" gueststore getcontent <resource path>
<output file>
• Linux
/usr/bin/vmware-toolbox-cmd gueststore getcontent <resource path> <output file>

Distribute VMware Tools Upgrade on Windows

You can perform VMware Tools upgrade for virtual machines from the GuestStore repository.
VMware provides VMware Tools content for download with each new release of VMware Tools. Starting with VMware
Tools releases after 11.2.5, you can download the VMware Tools content from VMware website and extract it under the
GuestStore repository path. Among all VMware Tools versions extracted in GuestStore repository, the latest version is
selected by default for subsequent upgrades unless overridden by a setting in the VMware Tools configuration file.
By importing the VMware Tools content in the GuestStore repository, you can schedule an automated VMware Tools
upgrade at the next reboot of the virtual machines. You can also trigger VMware Tools upgrade from GuestStore
repository for particular virtual machines through vSphere UI or API.
NOTE
Triggering VMware Tools upgrade from GuestStore repository using VMware Tools Toolbox command line is not
supported in this release.
GuestStore based VMware Tools upgrade is installed as part of VMware Tools installation. This feature generates
notification to the logged-on user, if GuestStore repository has newer version of VMware Tools and if VMware Tools
upgrade needs a system restart to complete the upgrade process.
There are multiple policies supported for GuestStore based VMware Tools upgrade. In tools.conf following setting can
be used to configure the policy:
[guestStoreUpgrade]

policy=manual

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where, "policy" can have one of the following values:

• off
– Disables the GuestStore based VMware Tools upgrade in the guest.
• manual
– This is the default policy. This policy allows vSphere administrators to trigger VMware Tools upgrade from
GuestStore repository using vSphere UI or API.
– If the virtual machine has VMware Tools upgrade policy configured to upgrade at powercycle (VMX setting
tools.upgrade.policy = "upgradeAtPowerCycle"), the setting is applied when the GuestStore based VMware
Tools upgrade feature is enabled. On first VMware Tools system service start after virtual machine powers on,
VMware Tools system service queries the host side VMware Tools upgrade policy setting for the virtual machine. If
the policy is set to upgrade at powercycle, a check for an upgrade of VMware Tools from the GuestStore repository
is triggered automatically.
NOTE
When GuestStore based VMware Tools upgrade is enabled, the VMware Tools bundled with VMware ESX
host is not used including the VMware Tools images added to VMware ESX host through vSphere Update
Manager (VUM).
• powercycle
– Triggers VMware Tools upgrade from GuestStore repository right after guest OS boots up.
– This policy also allows vSphere administrators to trigger VMware Tools upgrade from GuestStore repository using
vSphere UI or API.
By default, GuestStore based VMware Tools upgrade picks the latest version of VMware Tools from GuestStore
repository. This behavior can be overridden by specifying a VMware Tools version for "vmtools-version-key" setting. This
setting defaults to "vmtools" which refers to the latest VMware Tools version in the GuestStore repository.
For example, following setting restricts VMware Tools upgrades from the GuestStore repository to version 11.2.5.
vmtools-version-key=vmtools-11.2.5

Distribute VMware Tools Configuration at Scale

You can distribute VMware Tools configuration file across multiple virtual machines from the GuestStore repository.

The GlobalConf feature automatically updates VMware Tools configuration with the configuration available in the
GuestStore repository. The GlobalConf feature is disabled by default. When enabled, it allows vSphere administrators to
distribute global VMware Tools configuration across multiple virtual machines in the vSphere environment.
The GlobalConf feature relies on VMware Tools configuration being present in GuestStore repository. By default,
VMware Tools configuration is fetched from GuestStore repository "/vmware/configurations/vmtools/windows/
tools.conf" for Windows GOSes and "/vmware/configurations/vmtools/linux/tools.conf" for Linux
GOSes, unless overridden by a setting in local VMware Tools configuration inside the guest. Before using this feature,
the desired VMware Tools configuration should be added to GuestStore repository as the resource GlobalConf feature
expects.
When the GlobalConf feature is enabled, VMware Tools system service periodically checks for tools.conf file in the
GuestStore respository.
• If a tools.conf file is present, it is downloaded and applied locally at runtime. During this process, only the settings
that are not specified in the local tools.conf file inside the guest are applied.
• If the tools.conf file is not available in the GuestStore respository, any previously downloaded configuration file will
be deleted from the local file system in the guest.

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The GlobalConf module in VMware Tools checks the GuestStore repository every 60 mins by default. Inside the virtual
machine, the guest administrator can manually edit the tools.conf file to configure various settings related to the
GlobalConf module.
GlobalConf feature has the following configuration settings:
[globalconf]

• enabled=true: Enables the module.

• poll-interval=3600: Interval value should be specified in seconds. Default value: 3600 seconds. Minimum Value:
1800 seconds.
• resource=/path/to/tools/conf/in/gueststore: Default value is "/vmware/configurations/vmtools/
windows/tools.conf" for Windows GOSes and "/vmware/configurations/vmtools/linux/
tools.conf" for Linux GOSes.
NOTE
• The VMware Tools system service (vmsvc) must be restarted, if any of the above settings are updated in the
local tools.conf file.
• Starting from VMware Tools 11.3.0 release, when GlobalConf related settings are modified in the
tools.conf file,VMware Tools system service (vmsvc) does not need a restart.
You can use VMware Tools Toolbox command line utility to perform the following operations:
• Query the state of GlobalConf module.
– Windows
VMwareToolboxCmd.exe globalconf status
– Linux
vmware-toolbox-cmd globalconf status
• Enable the GlobalConf module.
– Windows
VMwareToolboxCmd.exe globalconf enable
– Linux
vmware-toolbox-cmd globalconf enable
• Disable the GlobalConf module.
– Windows
VMwareToolboxCmd.exe globalconf disable
– Linux
vmware-toolbox-cmd globalconf disable
• Trigger an immediate update of VMware Tools configuration from the GuestStore repository without waiting for polling
interval.
– Windows
VMwareToolboxCmd.exe globalconf refresh
– Linux
vmware-toolbox-cmd globalconf refresh
NOTE
You can use the globalconf enable or globalconf disable commands instead of editing tools.conf for
enabling or disabling GlobalConf feature.

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Uninstalling VMware Tools

When the upgrade process of VMware Tools is incomplete, you can uninstall and then reinstall VMware Tools.
• Power on the virtual machine.
• Log in to the guest operating system.
In a vSphere and open-vm-tools deployment, if you decide to use packages specific to Linux operating systems to
manage VMware Tools, and if you have already used vSphere to install VMware Tools, you must uninstall the existing
VMware Tools. For more information about Linux OSPs for VMware Tools, see Operating System Specific Packages for
Linux Guest Operating Systems.
1. Select a method to uninstall VMware Tools.
Operating System Action
Windows 7, 8, 8.1, or Windows 10, or Windows 11 In the guest operating system, start the Control Panel applet,
and select Programs and Features. Select VMware Tools and
click Uninstall.
Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 In the guest operating system, select Programs and Features >
Uninstall a program.
Windows XP and earlier In the guest operating system, select Add/Remove Programs.
Linux Log in as root and enter vmware-uninstall-tools.pl in
a terminal window.
Mac OS X, OS X, or macOS Use the Uninstall VMware Tools application, found in /
Library/Application Support/VMware Tools.
Windows on ARM In the guest operating system, start the Control Panel applet,
and select Programs and Features. Select VMware Tools and
click Uninstall.
Windows Server 2008 R2 and later In the guest operating system, start the Control Panel applet,
and select Programs and Features. Select VMware Tools and
click Uninstall.

2. Restart the guest operation system.

Reinstall VMware Tools.

Configuring Customer Experience Improvement Program

You can participate in the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) to provide anonymous feedback or
information to VMware for quality, reliability, and functionality improvments of VMware products and services.

VMware Customer Experience Improvement Program

VMware Tools participates in VMware's Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP).
Details regarding the data collected through CEIP and the purposes for which it is used by VMware are set forth at the
Trust & Assurance Center at https://www.broadcom.com/company/legal/privacy/data-usage-programs/ceip-products.

Join or Leave Customer Experience Improvement Program in vSphere Client

You can join your vCenter to the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP), or decide to leave the CEIP
at any time. To leave and rejoin your host to the CEIP, see vSphere Single Host Management - VMware Host Client
documentation.

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Obtain the user name and password of the administrator account.

1. From the vSphere Client login page, log in to vCenter by using the credentials of the administrator account.
2. On the vSphere Client home page, click Administration.
3. Under Deployment, click Customer Experience Improvement Program
4. Click Join to join the CEIP or Leave CEIP to leave the Program.

VMware Tools Install and Upgrade Issues

This topic covers issues related to VMware Tools install and upgrade process.

Install or Upgrade to VMware Tools 10.3.0

VMware Tools 10.3.0 depends on and ships Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable version 14.0. While preparing the
system for VMware Tools 10.3.0 installation, Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable is installed on the system as a
prerequisite.
When installing or upgrading to VMware Tools 10.3.0, different symptoms might be encountered as described:
• Installing or upgrading to VMware Tools 10.3.0 on Windows versions before Windows 10 might fail with an error
message if Windows OS level pre-requisites are not met.
• Installing or upgrading to VMware Tools 10.3.0 on Windows versions before Windows 10 may appear stuck with
"VMware Product Installation" dialog box carrying "Preparing 'VMware Tools' for installation..." message.
• Installing or upgrading to VMware Tools 10.3.0 on Windows versions before Windows 10 asks for restarting the system
without completing the install or upgrade.
• Installing or upgrading to VMware Tools 10.3.0 on Windows versions after Windows 10 asks for restarting the system
without completing the install or upgrade.
Since VMware Tools 10.3.0 depends on and ships Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable version 14.0, it requires the
Windows operating system to be at a certain service pack level. Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable also includes
Windows Update KB2999226.
Installing Windows Update KB2999226 on the system may take a while and may also require a system restart, depending
on the state of the system, as mentioned in the article Update for Universal C Runtime in Windows.
The installation might take a long time as described in the article Stuck while installing Visual Studio 2015 (Update for
Microsoft Windows KB2999226).
NOTE
VMware tries to ensure that all external links provided are correct at the time of inclusion on the website but
does not guarantee the accuracy of such information. VMware provides these links merely as a convenience.
Third-party URLs might change. If you find a URL in VMware documentation that is out of date, provide
feedback on the VMware Docs website. You might be able to locate a third-party document by searching from
the third-party home page.
NOTE: This issue applies to only Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2008, Windows
Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, and Windows Server 2012 R2.
Windows operating system might need a restart for different reasons
• For pre-Windows 10 versions it might be either due to KB2999226 or due to the presence of an existing older version
of Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable DLL on the system that is already loaded by other applications.
• For Windows 10 and later, the latter reason is a common cause of system restart.
1. Keep your Windows operating system up-to-date with latest updates.

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2. Install the Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable manually before installing or upgrading VMware Tools to version
10.3.0.
3. Alternatively, install Windows Update KB2999226 manually before installing or upgrading VMware Tools, as it reduces
some of the issues for Windows versions before Windows 10.

4. Update the Windows operating system, Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable and other Microsoft applications
before installing or upgrading to VMware Tools 10.3.0.
5. When the VMware Tools installation or upgrade is invoked with "REBOOT=ReallySuppress" argument, system
might require a manual restart for completing Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable installation. Reattempt the
VMware Tools installation or upgrade after restarting the Windows system. vSphere Client can detect this situation
by noticing no change in VMware Tools version and "guestinfo.toolsInstallErrCode=3010" in the guest
variables or in the advanced configuration of the VM.

6. When the VMware Tools installation or upgrade is invoked without any arguments, a system restart may occur
automatically to complete Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable install. After Windows system restarts, reattempt
the VMware Tools installation or upgrade.

Troubleshooting VMware Tools Components

When you perform a VMware Tools upgrade, the VMware Tools components are upgraded and new features are added. If
some features do not work correctly after an upgrade, you must change or repair the components. For operating systems
other than Windows and Linux, you must manually start the VMware User process after an upgrade.

Repair VMware Tools Components in Windows Virtual Machine

You need to repair or modify the installed VMware Tools Components, if you have problems with enhanced graphics
display, mouse actions, or with features that depend on VMware Tools.
Some new VMware Tools Components are not installed during a VMware Tools upgrade by default. You can manually
install these by modifying the installed VMware Tools Components.
Use the guest VM operating system’s Programs and Features item in the Windows Control Panel to repair or modify
VMware Tools.

Start VMware User Process Manually

VMware Tools in Linux, Solaris, and FreeBSD guest operating systems uses the VMware user process. This program
implements the fit-guest-to-window and other features.
Normally, this process starts after you configure VMware Tools, log out of the desktop environment, and re-login. You can
start the VMware user process by running the vmtoolsd -n vmusr command. The startup command can be modified
based on your system. You must start the process manually in the following environments:
• If you run an X session without a session manager.
For example, if you use startx to start a desktop session and do not use xdm, kdm, or gdm.
• If you are using an older version of GNOME without gdm or xdm.
• If you are using a session manager or environment that does not support the Desktop Application Autostart
Specification, available from http://standards.freedesktop.org.
• If you upgrade VMware Tools.
• Start the VMware User process.
Option Action
Start the VMware User process when you start an X Add vmtoolsd -n vmusr to the appropriate X startup
session. script, such as the .xsession or .xinitrc file.

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Option Action
Start the process after a VMware Tools software upgrade, or Open a terminal window and type the vmtoolsd -n vmusr
if certain features are not working. command.

VMware Tools FAQs

This topic provides frequently asked questions about VMware Tools.
• Can my OS run without VMware Tools?
Although a guest operating system can run without VMware Tools, always run the latest version of VMware Tools in
your guest operating systems to access the latest features and updates. You can configure your virtual machine to
automatically check for and apply VMware Tools upgrades each time you power on your virtual machines.
• How is VMware Tools released?
ISOs (containing installers): These are packaged with the product and are installed in a number of ways, depending
upon the VMware product and the guest operating system installed in the virtual machine. For more information,
see the Installing VMware Tools section. VMware Tools provides a different ISO file for each type of supported guest
operating system: Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, NetWare, Solaris, and FreeBSD.
Operating System Specific Packages (OSPs): Downloadable binary packages that are built and provided by VMware
for particular versions of Linux distributions. OSPs are typically available for older releases, such as RHEL 6. Most
current versions of Linux include Open VM Tools, eliminating the need to separately install OSPs. To download OSPs
and to find important information and instructions, see Broadcom Tools Operating System Specific Packages (OSPs).
For a list of supported guest operating systems, see the Broadcom Compatibility Guide.
open-vm-tools (OVT): This is the open source implementation of VMware Tools intended for Linux distribution
maintainors and virtual appliance vendors. OVTs are generally included in the current versions of popular Linux
distributions, allowing administrators to effortlessly install and update VMware Tools alongside other Linux packages.
For more information, see the KB article VMware support for Open VM Tools (2073803).
• Which operating systems are supported by open-vm-tools?
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.0 and later releases
• SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 and later releases
• Ubuntu 14.04 and later releases
• CentOS 7 and later releases
• FreeBSD 10.3, 10.4, 11.1, and later releases
• Debian 7.x and later releases
• Oracle Linux 7 and later
• Fedora 19 and later releases
• openSUSE 11.x and later releases
• Are there VMware Tools VIB available?
Offline bundles with VMware Tools VIB can be installed on vSphere 5.5.x, 6.0.x and 6.5.x versions using vSphere
Update Manager. Offline bundles are supported from 10.2.0 and later.

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Published Windows Drivers

VMware Tools drivers published to Windows Update.

VMware Tools Drivers Published to Windows Update

This article provides information about the VMware Tools Windows drivers published to Windows Update. The information
provided includes the latest driver version that is available for each supported Windows Operating System version. For
supported Windows Operating System versions, running Windows Update will install or upgrade to the latest versions of
these drivers, regardless of the VMware Tools version installed.
VMware Tools ships the newest versions of these drivers with each release. To determine the drivers’ version shipped
with the most recent, or a particular release of VMware Tools, please check the release notes in the VMware Tools
Documentation.

Drivers on Windows Update

The Windows drivers below are available through Windows Update.
NOTE

The driver for the specified OS is published to Windows Update.

The driver for the specified OS is not published to Windows Update.

In Windows Server

Windows
Windows Windows Windows Windows Windows
Driver Version Server
Server 2025 Server 2022 Server 2019 Server 2016 Server 2012
2012 R2
WDDM 9.17.09.004

vmci 9.8.30.0

vmxnet3 1.9.20.0

pvscsi 1.3.29.0

In Windows Client

Driver Version Windows 11 (64-bit) Windows 10 (64-bit)

WDDM 9.17.09.004

vmci 9.8.30.0

vmxnet3 1.9.20.0

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Driver Version Windows 11 (64-bit) Windows 10 (64-bit)

pvscsi 1.3.29.0

Discontinued-Publish OS

Windows Windows 7 Windows 8 Windows 8.1

Driver Version Server
2008 R2 32-bit 64-bit 32-bit 64-bit 32-bit 64-bit

vmci 9.8.16.0

9.8.18.0

vmxnet3 1.9.2.0

1.9.5.0

pvscsi 1.3.15.0

1.3.17.0

Known Issues
1. Broadcom removes previous drivers from Windows Update, but due to a Microsoft Portal issue, a search of the
Microsoft Update Catalog for VMware Drivers will list those drivers. However, they are not available for download. This
is expected.
2. Broadcom will publish the latest driver to Windows Update with each release, but due to the Microsoft Gradual Rollout,
the driver will not appear in search results until the gradual rollout is complete. Due to the limited release period, a
Windows VM may have a delay before receiving the driver update.
Disclaimer: Broadcom is not responsible for the reliability of any data, opinions, advice, or statements made on third-
party websites. Inclusion of such links does not imply that Broadcom endorses, recommends, or accepts any responsibility
for the content of such sites.

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Documentation Legal Notice

This Documentation, which includes embedded help systems and electronically distributed materials, (hereinafter referred
to as the “Documentation”) is for your informational purposes only and is subject to change or withdrawal by Broadcom
at any time. This Documentation is proprietary information of Broadcom and may not be copied, transferred, reproduced,
disclosed, modified or duplicated, in whole or in part, without the prior written consent of Broadcom.
If you are a licensed user of the software product(s) addressed in the Documentation, you may print or otherwise make
available a reasonable number of copies of the Documentation for internal use by you and your employees in connection
with that software, provided that all Broadcom copyright notices and legends are affixed to each reproduced copy.
The right to print or otherwise make available copies of the Documentation is limited to the period during which the
applicable license for such software remains in full force and effect. Should the license terminate for any reason, it is your
responsibility to certify in writing to Broadcom that all copies and partial copies of the Documentation have been returned
to Broadcom or destroyed.
TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, BROADCOM PROVIDES THIS DOCUMENTATION “AS
IS” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT WILL
BROADCOM BE LIABLE TO YOU OR ANY THIRD PARTY FOR ANY LOSS OR DAMAGE, DIRECT OR INDIRECT,
FROM THE USE OF THIS DOCUMENTATION, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, LOST PROFITS, LOST
INVESTMENT, BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, GOODWILL, OR LOST DATA, EVEN IF BROADCOM IS EXPRESSLY
ADVISED IN ADVANCE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH LOSS OR DAMAGE.
The use of any software product referenced in the Documentation is governed by the applicable license agreement and
such license agreement is not modified in any way by the terms of this notice
The manufacturer of this Documentation is Broadcom Inc.
Provided with “Restricted Rights.” Use, duplication or disclosure by the United States Government is subject to the
restrictions set forth in FAR Sections 12.212, 52.227-14, and 52.227-19(c)(1) - (2) and DFARS Section 252.227-7014(b)
(3), as applicable, or their successors.
Copyright © 2005–2025 Broadcom. All Rights Reserved. The term “Broadcom” refers to Broadcom Inc. and/or its
subsidiaries. All trademarks, trade names, service marks, and logos referenced herein belong to their respective
companies.

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