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VMware Tools | 19 SEP 2019 | Build No 14389227

Check for additions and updates to these release notes.

What's New

  • Added new OSS updates for libxml2 and OpenSSL to address security issues.

Note:

Tar tools and OSPs targeted for older Linux releases are updated only for critical bugfixes and security updates. VMware Tools 10.3.5 was the last release to provide feature support for tar tools and OSPs. For more details, see End of Feature Support Notice. 

Earlier Releases of VMware Tools

Before You Begin

  • VMware Tools 10.3.20 supports the following guest operating systems:

    • 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.

  • 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.

Note:

For other ISOs, use VMware Tools 10.3.10 or 11.0.0 release versions.

Internationalization

VMware Tools 10.3.20 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

  • 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 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.

Known Issues

  • 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

    Three desktop-related plugins are missing from the pluginsNN/vmusr/ directory.

    Workaround:

    • For SLES 11 and SLED 11 guests running on an ESXi host, 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.

  • 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.

    Workaround:

    1. Add the modprobe.blacklist=vmwgfx linux kernel boot option.

    2. To gain access to larger resolutions, remove the 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.

    Workaround:

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

    To resolve 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

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