Updated on: 20 MAR 2019

VMware Tools | 25 OCT 2016 | Build 4448496

Check for additions and updates to these release notes.

What's in the Release Notes

The release notes cover the following topics:

What's New

VMware Tools is a suite of utilities that enhances the performance of the virtual machine's guest operating system and improves management of the virtual machine.

  • VMware Tools Lifecycle Management: VMware Tools 10.0.12 freezes support for legacy Guest Operating Systems. Frozen ISO images are available for download from http://my.vmware.com. These ISO images are not shipped with ESXi in the tools-light VIB. VMware Tools 10.1.0 caters to the current guest operating systems. VMware Tools 10.0.12 caters to the legacy guest operating systems.

  • VMware Tools support for Guest Operating Systems in 10.0.12
    • VMware Tools support for Guest Operating Systems in version 10.0.12
      • winPreVista.iso supports Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows 2003.
      • linuxPreGLibc25.iso supports Linux guest operating systems earlier than Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 11, Ubuntu 7.04, and other distributions with glibc version earlier than 2.5.
      • darwinPre15.iso supports Mac OS X versions 10.10.x and older.
    • VMware Tools 7.7.0 support for the following guest operating systems has been already frozen
      • winPre2k.iso supports versions earlier than Windows 2000.
    • VMware Tools 8.1.0 support for the following guest operating systems has been already frozen
      • netware.iso supports NetWare guest operating systems.

  • Resolved Issues: This release of VMware Tools 10.0.12 addresses issues that have been documented in the Resolved Issues section.

Before You Begin

Important note about upgrading to ESXi 5.5 Update 3b or later

For resolution on incompatibility and general guidelines while upgrading ESXi hosts to ESXi 5.5 Update 3b or ESXi 6.0 Update 1 or later, using older versions of Horizon View Agent, refer to the knowledge base articles:

Internationalization

VMware Tools 10.0.12 is available in the following languages:

  • English
  • French
  • German
  • Spanish
  • Italian
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Simplified Chinese
  • Traditional Chinese

Compatibility Notes

VMware Tools 10.0.12 is compatible with supported versions of VMware vSphere ESXi 5.5 and later, VMware Workstation 12.0, and VMware Fusion 8.0. See VMware Compatibility Guide for more information.

Guest Operating System Customization Support

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

Installation and Upgrades for this release

VMware Tools can be downloaded from the Product Download page.

VMware Tools Operating System Specific Packages can be downloaded from http://packages.vmware.com/tools/releases/index.html. For more information on installing OSPs, see the VMware Tools Installation Guide for Operating System Specific Packages

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 shared datastore, see KB 2004018.

For specific instructions to install, upgrade, and configure VMware Tools, see VMware Tools Documentation page.

Upgrade Information

Support for ESXi 5.0 and ESXi 5.1 VMware Tools

  • Extended support - Extended support is available for VMware Tools versions shipped with ESXi 5.0 and ESXi 5.1
  • Upgrade - Upgrade of VMware Tools to version 10.0.12 for legacy guest operating systems is not supported on ESXi 5.0 and ESXi 5.1. Virtual machines running VMware Tools 10.0.12 is supported on ESXi 5.0 and 5.1.
  • The minimum versions of VMware ESXi 5.5, Patch Release ESXi550-201608001 and VMware ESXi 6.0, Patch Release ESXi600-201608001 and later is required to install or upgrade VMware Tools 10.0.12 on the legacy guest operating systems running on ESXi 5.5 and ESXi 6.0.

Upgrade Impact

VMware Tools is backward and forward compatible with ESXi. Newer version of VMware Tools is compatible with older ESXi versions supported and conversely. Upgrade of VMware Tools to version 10.0.12 is the last supported upgrade for the legacy guest operating systems on VMware ESXi 5.5, Patch Release ESXi550-201608001 , VMware ESXi 6.0, Patch Release ESXi600-201608001 and later.

Upgrade Support for future releases of VMware Tools

Upgrade support is available for older versions of VMware Tools shipped with ESXi that have reached end of support to newer versions of VMware Tools shipped concurrently to the immediate ESXi version released at the time of end of support of the older ESXi releases.

Windows guest Drivers Installed by VMware Tools

The following driver versions are supported by VMware Tools 10.0.12 on a Windows Guest Operating System.

Drivers VMware Tools 10.0.12
Hardware Drivers
vmci

9.5.10.0
vsock

9.5.7.0
pvscsi

1.2.3.0
wddm

n/a
xpdm

12.1.8.0
vmxnet3

1.5.2.0 - NDIS 5.0

vmxnet2

2.2.0.0
vmmouse

12.5.2.0
vmusbmouse

12.5.2.0
vmaudio

5.10.0.3506
BusLogic 2.0.3.0
Software Drivers
vmrawdsk.sys

0.9.9.0 - For Kernel-Mode Code Signing
vmmemctl.sys

7.3.5.0 - For Kernel-Mode Code Signing
vmhgfs.sys

10.0.1.0 - For Frozen operating systems older than Windows Vista

vsepflt.sys

7.0.0.8 - For Kernel-Mode Code Signing
vnetflt.sys

7.0.0.8 - For Kernel-Mode Code Signing

 

Resolved Issues

  • Unable to acquire IP Address of Windows guest operating system using VMware Tools
    VMware Tools, from version 9.10.5 to version 10.0.9, does not acquire the IP address of the network interface on Windows Server 2000 guest operating system.

    • This issue is resolved in this release.

  • Quiesced snapshot operation failure leave the Linux guest file system in a quiesced state
    A quiesced snapshot operation on a Linux guest operating system may fail on host side after the guest file system has been quiesced. Occurrence of this issue leaves the guest file system in the quiesced state even after completion of the snapshot operation with error returned to the client. It generates error log messages similar to the following in the vmware.log file.

    <TIMESTAMP>| vcpu-0| I120: ToolsBackup: changing quiesce state: COMMITTED -> ERROR_WAIT
    <TIMESTAMP>| vcpu-0| I120: Msg_Post: Warning
    <TIMESTAMP>| vcpu-0| I120: [msg.snapshot.quiesce.vmerr] The guest OS has reported an error during quiescing.
    <TIMESTAMP>| vcpu-0| I120+ The error code was: 4
    <TIMESTAMP>| vcpu-0| I120+ The error message was: Quiesce aborted.
    <TIMESTAMP>| vcpu-0| I120: ----------------------------------------
    <TIMESTAMP>| vcpu-0| I120: Vigor_MessageRevoke: message 'msg.snapshot.quiesce.vmerr' (seq 860282) is revoked
    <TIMESTAMP>| vcpu-0| I120: ToolsBackup: changing quiesce state: ERROR_WAIT -> ERROR_WAIT
    <TIMESTAMP>| vcpu-0| I120: ToolsBackup: changing quiesce state: ERROR_WAIT -> IDLE
    <TIMESTAMP>| vcpu-0| I120: ToolsBackup: changing quiesce state: IDLE -> DONE

    This issue is resolved in this release.

Known Issues

The known issues for VMware Tools 10.0.12 are listed below

  • Repository with meta-packages are not available in the frozen Operating System Specific Packages (OSP) of VMware Tools.
    repos/ directory which contains repo rpm packages such as vmware-tools-repo-xxx.rpm are not available in the frozen Operating System Specific Packages of VMware Tools packages.vmware.com/tools/releases/10.0.12. As a result, operating system specific repository file will not be created automatically by installing repo rpm packages.

    Workaround: To workaround this issue, manually set up the repository file on the virtual machine.

    For example, in RHEL 4, create the following repo file under \etc\yum.repos.d
    #
    # VMware OSPs for RHEL4
    #

    [vmware-tools-collection]
    name=vmware-tools-collection
    baseurl=http://packages.vmware.com/tools/releases/10.0.12/rhel/i386
    enabled=1
    gpgcheck=1
    gpgkey=http://packages.vmware.com/tools/keys/VMWARE-PACKAGING-GPG-RSA-KEY.pub

  • VMXNET3 driver prevents the Windows operating system from receiving all the multicast traffic in the DVSwitch
    The new VMXNET3 driver prevents the Windows operating system from receiving all the multicast traffic in the DVSwitch if multicast address in set to more than 32 in the Windows operating system.

    Workaround: None

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