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Updated on: 24 JAN 2019

VMware Tools | 03 MARCH 2016 | Build 3560309

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.

  • vmxnet3 driver: The new vmxnet3 driver prevents the Windows Operating System from overriding the Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) snooping configuration in DVSwitch.
  • Drivers and Certifications: Signed Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) 8.15.1.33 graphics driver for VMware Tools 10.0.6
  • Resolved Issues: This release of VMware Tools 10.0.6 addresses issues that have been documented in the Resolved Issues section.

Earlier Releases of VMware Tools

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, while using older versions of Horizon View Agent, please refer to the knowledge base articles below:

Connecting to View desktops with Horizon View Agent 5.3.5 or earlier hosted on ESXi 5.5 Update 3b or later fails with a black screen.
Connecting to View desktops with Horizon View agent 6.0.x or 6.1.x hosted on ESXi 5.5 Update 3b or later fails with a black screen.
Connecting to View desktops with Horizon View Agent 6.1.x hosted on ESXi 6.0 Update 1 or later fails with a black screen.

Internationalization

VMware Tools 10.0.6 is available in the following languages:

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

Compatibility

VMware Tools 10.0.6 is compatible with supported versions of VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0 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.

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) or the Installing and Configuring VMware Tools Guide.

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

Product Support Notices

VMware Tools 10.0.6 enables support for DirectX 10.0 and OpenGL 3.3 on Windows guests when used with VMware Workstation 12.0, VMware Fusion 8.0 and a future release of VMware vSphere where the virtual device supports the required feature.

Resolved Issues

  • Windows Guest Operating System customization fails to complete

    Windows guest Operating System customization fails to complete if the base VM has upgraded tools from build 2981885 (version 9.10.5.49873) to build 3000743 (version 10.0.0.50046) or build 3227872 (version 10.0.5.52125).

    This issue is resolved by upgrading VMware Tools to this release.

  • VMware Tools might stop responding while opening the Network File System mounts
    When you take a quiesced snapshot on a Linux virtual machine, VMware Tools might stop responding while opening the Network File System (NFS) mounts and result in all filesystem activity to stop on the guest operating system. An error message similar to the following is displayed and the virtual machine stops responding:

    • An error occurred while saving the snapshot: msg.snapshot.error-QUIESCINGERROR

    This issue is resolved in this release.

  • Unable to open telnet on Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012 guest operating system after installing VMware Tools

    After installing VMware Tools on Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012 guest operating system, attempts to open telnet using the start telnet://xx.xx.xx.xx command fails with the following error message:

    Make sure the virtual machine's configuration allows the guest to open host applications

    This issue is resolved in this release.

  • Rebooting or shutting down might cause kernel panic in Linux systems with kernel versions lower than 3.9
    Rebooting or shutting down the guest OS might cause kernel panic in the RHEL operating system with kernel versions lower than 3.9.

    • This issue is resolved in this release.

  • vmusr reports log spew with a warning message
    vmusr reports log spew  of VMware Tools. In the Windows Application Event log, you might see this warning error message reported multiple times in quick succession:

    • "[ warning] [vmusr:vmusr] SimpleSock: Socket # closed by peer."

    This issue is resolved in this release.

  • Upgrading VMware Tools on Mac OS X guest operating system fails
    Upgrading VMware Tools on Mac OS X guest operating system fails with an error similar to the following:

    • “The installation failed”

    This issue is resolved in this release.

Known Issues

The known issues are as follows:

  • Attempting to connect to the View desktop results in a black screen
    While upgrading VMware vSphere to version 6.0 Update 1, VMware Tools to the latest version for View desktops, and installing the older View Agent, you might see an error similar to the following in the View agent PCOIP logs located at DriveLetter:\ProgramData\VMware\VDM\logs
    LVL:0 RC:0 IMG_FRONTEND :Calling open display in Tera2 mode.
    LVL:0 RC:0 IMG_FRONTEND :configure_displays: 1 display(s) initially reported!
    LVL:2 RC:0 IMG_FRONTEND :configure_displays: (1) single display[0]: pos:(0, 0) w: 1024, h: 768, bpp: 32
    LVL:0 RC:0 IMG_FRONTEND :configure_display[0]--* id: 48 mon_id: 0 pos: (0,0) w: 1024 h: 768
    LVL:0 RC:0 IMG_FRONTEND :configure_display[0]--bpp: 32 --pitch: 4096 --map size: 1552 --fb size: 3145728
    LVL:0 RC:0 IMG_FRONTEND :configure_display[0]--rot: 0 --pre-rot pitch: 4096 --frontend motion is enabled
    LVL:0 RC:0 EXTERN :svga_devtap ==> second render failed: 0xc0000008
    LVL:0 RC:0 EXTERN :svga_devtap ==> Error: screen dma failed
    LVL:0 RC:0 IMG_FRONTEND :flip_frame_buffer: General flip error [1 results for 1 displays]: [4001, 0]
    LVL:0 RC:-500 IMG_FRONTEND :open_displays(): Flip error in open display first flip.

    • This issue occurs because the video driver installed with VMware Tools is incompatible with older versions of the View Agent.

    Workaround: To workaround this issue, follow one of these recommendations as appropriate.

    • It is not recommended to install VMware Tools 10.0.0 or later for users using an version older than Horizon View Agent version 6.2
    • Install the latest version of Horizon View Agent 6.2. Alternatively, if the View Agent 6.2 cannot be installed, remove the existing agent and tools, install an older version of VMware Tools followed by the required View Agent

  • Mac OS X guest shows only one resolution in Display Preferences
    Virtual machines with Mac OS X 10.9 or later are limited to a single resolution choice (such as 1024x768) in System Preferences > Displays.

    Workaround: After installing VMware Tools, the following command can be used in the guest to set a custom resolution:

    sudo '/Library/Application Support/VMware Tools/vmware-resolutionSet' <width> <height>
    Note: using the command without "sudo" is also possible, but the custom resolution won't persist after restarting the guest operating system.
    If the effective resolution is smaller than requested, follow KB 1003 to increase the video memory size of the virtual machine.

  • On the Ubuntu 15.10 guest operating system, replacing open-vm-tools with the bundled VMware Tools version, might cause VMware Tools to work improperly
    On the Ubuntu 15.10 guest, when you replace open-vm-tools with the VMware Tools version bundled with VMware Workstation 11.1.3 and VMware Fusion 7.1.3, VMware Tools does not work as expected. After you reboot the system, an Ubuntu crash report might appear and one of the services in VMware Tools might stop working.

    • Workaround: Use either of the following workarounds, depending on which is most appropriate for your situation.

    • Continue to use open-vm-tools. Do not use the bundled VMware Tools
    • If the bundled VMware Tools is installed, perform the following steps:
        1. Edit the /etc/vmware-tools/vmware-user.desktop file as root by changing this line:
          Exec=/usr/bin/vmware-user
          To this line:
          Exec=env VMWARE_USE_SHIPPED_LIBS=1 /usr/bin/vmware-user
        2. Log out of the guest and log in again.
          This change can prevent the VMware Tools service vmtoolsd from failure
        3. To verify that the preceding steps are effective, issue the following command:
          'ps -aux | grep vmtools'
          The appropriate command return shows both of the following vmtoolsd services running:
          -/usr/sbin/vmtoolsd
          -/usr/lib/vmware-tools/sbin64/vmtoolsd

  • The status of IPv6 address is displayed as "unknown"
    The status of IPv6 address from vim-cmd is displayed as "unknown" even when the address is valid.

    • Workaround: None.

  • Copying and pasting text between host and guest systems fail
    Copy and paste of text between host and guest systems fail if the text size is 50KB or higher.

    • Workaround: Copy and paste smaller amount of text.

  • Installing VMware Tools on Windows 2000 Professional SP4 fails with an error
    While installing ThinPrint drivers on Windows 2000 Professional SP4 with VMware Tools 10.0.6 fails with an error prompt.

    • Workaround: To workaround this issue, follow one of these recommendations as appropriate.

    • For users who have installed ThinPrint, it is recommended not to update VMware Tools to version 10.0.6.
    • For users who have not installed ThinPrint, it is recommended not to install ThinPrint with VMware Tools 10.0.6.

  • Using clobber option while installing VMware Tools on Linux guests might fail
    Using clobber option while installing VMware Tools on Linux guests might fail while booting the virtual machine.

    • Workaround: To workaround this issue, use upstream drivers delivered by Linux kernel.

  • Definition of the field ipAddress in guestinfo is ambiguous
    The field ipAddress is defined as Primary IP address assigned to the guest operating system, if known.

    • Workaround: The field ipAddress in this context for Linux is defined as the first IP address fetched by VMware Tools.

  • Reinstall VMware Tools is disabled in VMware Fusion after installing guest operating system
    In VMware Fusion, menu option Reinstall VMware Tools is disabled after the installing Windows XP SP3 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 guest operating system.

    • Note: This problem might appear only on some of the hosts and not all the hosts.

    Workaround: To workaround this issue, shutdown and restart the virtual machine.

  • After installing VMware Tools 10.0.6 on a FreeBSD 10.x virtual machine, the guest might not shut down properly when performed from the Workstation Pro or Fusion interface
    When you install VMware Tools 10.0.6 on a FreeBSD 10.x virtual machine, the VMware Tools service, vmtoolsd, might not launch. vmtoolsd runs in the background and is responsible for a variety of operations. A symptom you might encounter is that the guest operating system might not shutdown as intended when performed from the Workstation Pro or Fusion interface. For example, the first attempt to shutdown the guest might fail while the second attempt from the interface is converted into a virtual machine power off operation instead of a graceful shutdown.

    • Workaround: Use the VMware Tools version included with a previous version of Workstation Pro or Fusion.

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