VMware Tools | 26 SEP 2017 | Build 6677369

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 support for guest operating systems in 10.1.15
    • windows.iso supports Windows Vista and later.
    • linux.iso supports Linux guest operating systems Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5 and later, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 11 and later, Ubuntu 10.04 and later. It also supports other distributions with glibc versions 2.5 and later.
    • darwin.iso supports Mac OS X versions 10.11 and later.
    • freebsd.iso supports FreeBSD versions.
    • solaris.iso supports Solaris versions.
  • New guestInfo variables: Four new guestInfo variables report VMware Tools version information
    • guestinfo.vmtools.description provides a readable description of the VMware Tools version.
    • guestinfo.vmtools.versionString reports the version as a string.
    • guestinfo.vmtools.versionNumber reports the version as a number, similar to vim.vm.GuestInfo.toolsVersion
    • guestinfo.vmtools.buildNumber reports the build number
  • Resolved Issues: This release of VMware Tools 10.1.15 addresses issues that have been documented in the Resolved Issues section.

Earlier Releases of VMware Tools

For earlier releases of VMware Tools 10.0.0, see the VMware Tools Documentation page.

Before You Begin

VMware Tools ISO images for a few end of life guest operating systems are frozen. Some ISO images are not shipped with ESXi in the tools-light VIB. For more details, see the VMware Tools Documentation page. All VMware Tools ISO images are available for download from http://my.vmware.com.

VMware Tools for Windows is available for download in 32-bit and 64-bit installer executable (.exe) files. These files are provided for easier access and installation of VMware Tools in Windows guest operating systems.

VMware support for VMware Tools for FreeBSD will be frozen at version 10.1.x. VMware recommends using open-vm-tools, redistributed by operating system vendors.The support is ceased with the availability of open-vm-tools from FreeBSD for releases 10.x, 11.x and for the FreeBSD development branch 12.0 currently.

  • VMware Tools 10.1.x is available and can be installed on supported FreeBSD 10.x OS releases.
  • VMware Tools 10.1.5 is the last supported version of VMware Tools for FreeBSD that can be installed on FreeBSD 11.x.

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

For the 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 10.1.15 is available in the following languages:

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

Compatibility

VMware Tools 10.1.15 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.

VMware Tools 10.1.15 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 releases of VMware vSphere where the virtual device supports the required feature. The VMware guest operating system OpenGL driver for Windows and Linux supports the OpenGL 3.3 core profile only. The OpenGL3.3 compatibility profile is not supported. OpenGL guest driver only supports version 3.0 for compatibility profiles.

The VMware Tools installer option to clobber Linux kernel modules that are shipped with the operating system is deprecated. In the upcoming versions of VMware Tools for Linux, the clobber option will be removed from the installer.

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 for ESXi versions 5.x and 6.x.

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 the productLocker to point to the shared datastore, see KB 2004018.

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

Upgrade Information

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.

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 the 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.

Upgrade Impact

The upgrade support implies that users follow a two-step upgrade process to get versions later than 10.1.0 of VMware Tools on non-legacy guest operating systems

  1. Upgrade VMware Tools that are shipped with ESXi 5.0 or ESXi 5.1 to newer version of VMware Tools version from 9.4.6 on ESXi 5.5 to VMware Tools 10.1.0 on newer versions of ESXi.
  2. Upgrade VMware Tools to later versions

For a simple upgrade, upgrade to VMware Tools bundled with the supported version of ESXi. 

VMware Tools is backward and forward compatible with ESXi. Newer versions of VMware Tools are 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.

Windows guest drivers installed by VMware Tools

VMware Tools 10.1.15 support the following driver versions on a Windows Guest Operating System.

Hardware drivers
Drivers
Version
vmci 9.8.6.0
vsock 9.8.8.0
pvscsi 1.3.8.0
wddm 8.15.1.50
xpdm 12.1.8.0
vmxnet3 1.7.3.0 - NDIS 6.0
vmxnet2 2.2.0.0
vmmouse 12.5.7.0
vmusbmouse 12.5.7.0
vmaudio 5.10.0.3506

 

Software drivers
Drivers
Version
vmrawdsk.sys 1.1.0.1
vmmemctl.sys 7.4.1.1
vmhgfs.sys 11.0.14.2 - For operating systems Windows Vista and later
vsepflt.sys 10.1.0.0
vnetflt.sys 10.1.0.0 - For Kernel-Mode Code Signing
vnetWFP.sys 10.1.0.0

 

Resolved Issues

  • VMware Tools might cause a kernel failure on Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel for Oracle Linux 6.8 virtual machine

    Installing VMware Tools on Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel for Oracle Linux 6.8 virtual machine may result in a kernel failure. This issue occurs while unloading the VMCI kernel.

    This issue is resolved in this release.
     

  • VMware Tools service stops running in the virtual machine

    When tools.conf configuration file is configured with an entry similar to the following, without specifying the filename, VMware Tools service might stop running with a segmentation fault.

    [logging]
    vmsvc.handler=file

    To work around this issue, set a file name. For example,

    vmsvc.data=/var/log/vmware-vmsvc.log

  • Uninstalling VMware Tools on a Windows guest operating system and rebooting fails with a diagnostic screen

    While uninstalling VMware Tools on a Windows guest operating system, the PVSCSI driver which is configured as its boot device is removed. While rebooting the VM, the guest operating system fails to find the boot device which results in a black diagnostic screen.

    This issue is resolved in this release.

  • Usernames with .\username format is not supported for guest authentication

    Usernames of the form .\username is not supported for guest authentication.

    This issue is resolved in this release.

Known Issues

  • Windows Explorer displays the Shared Folders mapped network drive as disconnected

    On launching a Windows File Explorer window after powering on a virtual machine, shared folders are marked with an 'X' mark in red color. This indicates the shared folders are disconnected. This issue might occur even if the Shared Folders feature is enabled. 


    This issue occurs when the user logs in and creates persistent mapped drives before the VMware Tools service has fully initialized and started the Shared Folders client. As a result, when a File Explorer window is launched it displays VMware Shared Folders drive as disconnected.

    When the user launches a File Explorer window after a system boot, shared folder mapped drives appear green and connected. This issue is resolved in this release. 

  • Windows system backup fails when VMware Tools 10.1.x is installed

    When a windows system state backup attempts to run with VMware Tools 10.1.x installed, you might see an error similar to the following: 

    Error in backup of C:\windows\\systemroot\ during enumerate:Error [0x8007007b] The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect

    To work around this issue, see KB 2149178.

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