VMware Tools | 14 MAR 2019 | Build 12406962

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 10.3.10 release freezes support for Solaris guests.
  • pvscsi driver is now available through Microsoft's Windows Update service for Windows Server 2016 and Windows Server 2019. vmxnet3 driver update will be made available through the same service when the driver publication process completes.
  • This version of VMware Tools includes prebuilt kernel modules with the Spectre mitigation (retpoline) enabled for SLES11SP4 (kernel versions 3.0.101-108.84 and higher) and RHEL6.6 (kernel versions 2.6.32-754.9.1 and higher).
  • OSPs for SLES11SP4 include a set of kernel module packages with the Spectre mitigation enabled, which are installed by upgrading OSPs to this version.
  • OSPs for RHEL6.6 include a set of kernel module packages with the Spectre mitigation enabled, which are installed by installing vmware-tools-esx-kmods-retpoline with YUM.
  • Resolved Issues: There are some issues that are resolved in this release of VMware Tools which are documented in the Resolved Issues section of this release notes.

Earlier Releases of VMware Tools

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

Before You Begin

  • VMware Tools 10.3.10 supports the following guest operating systems:
    • windows.iso supports Windows Vista and later. 
      • VMware Tools 10.3.10 depends on and ships Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable version 14.0. While preparing the system for VMware Tools 10.3.10 installation, Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable is installed on the system as a prerequisite. Installing or upgrading to VMware Tools 10.3.10 is not supported for Windows versions that do not meet the prerequisites and customers should continue to use VMware Tools 10.2.x or older until they can patch or update Windows OS to meet the prerequisites for VMware Tools 10.3.10. 
      • Windows OS level prerequisites
        • Windows Server 2019
        • Windows Server 2016
        • Windows 10
        • Windows Server 2012
        • Windows 8
        • Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1)
        • Windows 7 SP1
        • Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 (SP2)
        • Windows Vista SP2
        • Windows Server 2012 R2 with Microsoft update KB2919355
        • Windows 8.1 with Microsoft update  KB2919355
    • linux.iso supports Linux guest operating systems Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5 and later, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 11 (see Known Issues), Ubuntu 12.04 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.
    • solaris.iso supports Solaris versions 10 and later.
  • VMware Tools ISO images are frozen for some end of life guest operating systems. Some ISO images are not included 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: 32-bit and 64-bit installer executable (.exe) files are available for download. These files are provided for easier access and installation of VMware Tools in Windows guest operating systems.

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

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

Internationalization

VMware Tools 10.3.10 is available in the following languages:

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

Product Support Notice

  • The Windows pre-Vista iso image for VMWare Tools is no longer packaged with ESXi. The Windows pre-Vista iso image is available for download by users who require it. For download information, see the Product Download page.

End of Feature Support Notice

  • Balloon driver will be removed from MacOS VMware Tools 11.0.0.
  • VMware Tools 10.3.5 freezes feature support for tar tools and OSPs 
    The tar tools (linux.iso) and OSPs shipped with VMware Tools 10.3.5 release will continue to be supported. However, releases after VMware Tools 10.3.5 will only include critical and security fixes and no new feature support in these types of VMware Tools (tar tools and OSP's). It is recommended that customers use open-vm-tools for those operating systems that support open-vm-tools. For more information on different types of VMware Tools, see https://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2016/02/understanding-the-three-types-of-vm-tools.html

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 supported for customization.

Interoperability Matrix

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

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 the shared datastore, see KB 2004018.

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

Note:

If you are using VMware Tools version earlier than 9.4, refer to VMware Tools 10.1.0 Release Notes for specific upgrade guidelines.

Windows guest drivers installed by VMware Tools

VMware Tools 10.3.10 supports the following driver versions on a Windows Guest Operating System.

Drivers VMware Tools 10.3.10
Hardware Drivers
vmci

9.8.6.0
vsock

9.8.12.0
pvscsi

1.3.10.0
wddm

8.16.01.0024
xpdm

12.1.8.0
vmxnet3

1.8.10.0
vmxnet2

2.2.0.0
vmmouse

12.5.7.0
vmusbmouse

12.5.7.0
vmaudio

5.10.0.3506
efifw 1.0.0.0
Software Drivers
vmrawdsk.sys

1.1.1.0
vmmemctl.sys

7.4.2.0
vmhgfs.sys

11.0.34.0
vsepflt.sys

10.3.10.0
vnetflt.sys

10.3.0.0
vnetWFP.sys 

10.3.0.0 

 
glgxi.sys

1.3.4.0
(Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2016, and Windows Server 2019)
Security DLL
vmwsu.dll 2.0.0.0

Resolved Issues

  • Installation of VMware Tools fails on Solaris 10.

    Installation of VMware Tools 10.3.2 or 10.3.5 fails on Solaris 10 with two error messages of the form “Unable to change the access rights of the file GLOB (<hex number>)”. Each of these error messages is followed by an "Execution canceled" message.

    This problem affects installation on Solaris 10 only. VMware Tools installation works fine on Solaris 11.

    This issue is fixed in this release.

  • In certain cases, quiesced snapshots on Linux guests do not include backup manifests.

    On a Linux guest, if VMware Tools 10.3.5 gets an error when notifying the ESXi host of a quiesced snapshot's backup manifest file, VMware Tools logs an error and does not notify the ESXi host of the backup manifest file on subsequent quiesced snapshots. As a result, some quiesced snapshots do not include the backup manifest file, that would otherwise be available on the ESXi host. Such snapshots are not identified as quiesced by vSphere clients.

    This issue is fixed in this release.

  • Mouse cursor issues in Windows VMs with multiple monitor displays.

    In Windows VMs with multiple monitors, mouse cursor has the following issues:

    • Mouse cursor disappears, when:
      • The cursor is on the the left monitor(s). The cursor animation works only when the cursor is on the right most monitor.
      • The cursor is moved within some 3rd party applications.
      • There is transition from one cursor to another.
      • The software is busy.
    • Mouse cursor flickers or blinks.
    • Mouse cursor jumps towards the corner of monitor frequently.
    • Mouse cursor movements are sporadic and slow inside VMs.

    This issue is fixed in this release.

Known Issues

  • AppDefense driver glxgi logs an error in the event viewer.

    AppDefense driver glxgi logs an error in the event viewer similar to the following:

    "The glxgi service failed to start due to the following error: A device attached to the system is not functioning."

    The events are observed when Guest Integrity is disabled.

    Workaround:

    These events do not impact the system and are safe to ignore.

  • Event Viewer driver warnings generated by VMware Tools boot start drivers glxgi, pvscsi, vsepflt, and vsock. 

    When you have a secure boot VM with Microsoft Hyper-V and virtualization-based security enabled with Device Guard and Code Integrity policy set to enforced, then drivers, glxgi, pvscsi, vsepflt, and vsock might generate the event log warnings similar to the following.

    Log Name:      Microsoft-Windows-CodeIntegrity/Operational
    Source:        Microsoft-Windows-CodeIntegrity

    Operational Log:

    Warnings 

    Event ID:      3083    
    Level:         Warning

    Description:
    Code Integrity determined kernel module system32\DRIVERS\vsock.sys that did not meet the WHQL requirements is loaded into the system.
    Check with the publisher to see if a WHQL compliant kernel module is available. 

    Workaround:

    These warnings are safe to ignore. The drivers load and operate in the normal manner.

  • VMware Tools package fails to complete the installation.

    While installing VMware Tools by running the setup command, a dialog box appears which displays a progress bar. This dialog box displays the progress of the installation of the VC 2017 redistributable package which is used by VMware Tools. The VC 2017 redistributable package installation does not complete, preventing the launch of the general VMware Tools installation dialog box.

    The VMware Tools installation logs can be found in the temporary folder in the path similar to the following:

     %temp%\vminst.log and %temp%\vmmsi.log

    The issue is observed with Windows Vista Service Pack 2 operating system which has Microsoft Document Explorer 2008 package installed when VMware Tools installs the Microsoft VC 2017 redistributable package.

    Workaround:

    To install VMware Tools, 

    1. Uninstall the Microsoft Document Explorer 2008 package from the Windows Vista Service Pack 2 operating system. 
    2. Install or upgrade VMware Tools by running the setup again.
  • Installing or upgrading to VMware Tools 10.3.0 might take longer and Windows OS might need a restart.

    Installation process might appear to be in progress and displays a message similar to the following:
    ​ "Preparing 'VMware Tools' for installation..."

    During this process, the user might be prompted to restart the operating system. 

    Workaround:

    For more information, see KB 55798.

  • Drag functionality fails to work in Ubuntu.

    Drag functionality fails to work in Ubuntu 16.04.4 32-bit virtual machine installed using easy install. Also, failure of copy and paste functionality is observed in the same system.

    Note: This issue is applicable for VMware Tools running on Workstation and Fusion.

    Workaround:

    • Add the modprobe.blacklist=vmwgfx linux kernel boot option.
    • To gain access to larger resolutions, remove svga.guestBackedPrimaryAware = "TRUE" option from the VMX file.
  • Shared Folders mount is unavailable on Linux VM.

    If the Shared Folders feature is enabled on a Linux VM while it is powered off, shared folders mount is not available on restart.

    Note: This issue is applicable for VMware Tools running on Workstation and Fusion.

    Workaround:

    If the VM is powered on, disable and enable the Shared Folders feature from the interface.
    For resolving 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

  • VMware Tools kernel module signature verification failure warning messages appear for Solaris 11.4.

    The Solaris Verified Boot default policy is set to "warning" in the Solaris 11.4 release. When an unsigned module is loaded, a warning message appears as below:

    "solaris-11.4 krtld: Warning: Signature verification of module /kernel/drv/amd64/vmmemctl failed"

    VMware does not provide signed kernel modules for Solaris in VMware Tools releases. As each VMware Tools kernel module is loaded, a warning message appears on the console or in the system log (/var/log/messages).
    In "warning" mode, the module is, however, loaded into the kernel.

  • UI/Desktop features fail on SLES 11 and SLED 11 guests.

    The desktop plugins fail to load. For instance, in the following commands (executed as the root user)

    ps -ef | grep tools

    root 2077 1 0 12:51 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/vmtoolsd
    dsktopusr 4870 1 0 13:01 ? 00:00:00 /usr/lib/vmware-tools/sbin32/vmtoolsd -n vmusr

    lsof -p <dsktopusr-pid> | grep plugins

    vmtoolsd 4870 dsktopusr mem REG 8,2 261468 305657 /usr/lib/vmware-tools/plugins32/common/libvix.so
    vmtoolsd 4870 dsktopusr mem REG 8,2 9356 305656 /usr/lib/vmware-tools/plugins32/common/libhgfsServer.so

    There are three desktop related plugins missing from the pluginsNN/vmusr/ directory.

    Workaround:

    For SLES 11 and SLED 11 guests running on VMware ESXi: 

    • Use the SLES or SLED UI to change screen resolution, or use VMware Tools version 10.2.5.

    For SLES 11 and SLED 11 guests running on VMware Fusion or VMware Workstation:

    • For a working set of VMware Tools desktop features, install VMware Tools version 10.2.5.
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