VMware Tools10.1.0 is a major release with several enhancements. This adds simplified and scalable approach for install 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 comes with a number of feature enhancements, driver related enhancements and support for new guest operating systems.

Mapping of VMware Tools and Guest Operating System

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

Table 1. VMware Tools support for Guest Operating Systems in version 10.1.0 and 10.0.12
ISO Images Supported Guest Operating System Version of VMware Tools
winPreVista.iso Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 10.0.12
linuxPreGLibc25.iso Linux guest operating systems earlier than RHEL 5, SLES 11, and other distributions with glibc version earlier than 2.5 10.0.12
darwinPre15.iso MAC OS versions earlier than 10.10.x 10.0.12
windows.iso Windows Vista and later 10.1.0
linux.iso Linux guest operating systems with glibc version 2.5 and later 10.1.0
darwin.iso MAC OS versions 10.11 and later 10.1.0
freebsd.iso FreeBSD operating systems 10.1.0
solaris.iso Solaris operating systems 10.1.0
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