VMware Tools uses a configuration file called tools.conf to configure different operations such as logging, upgrade, guest info, and so on. Admins can configure VMware Tools by editing this tools.conf file.

Configuration File Location

The table lists down the location of configuration file for various Guest OSs:
Guest OS Path [1]
Windows XP, Windows Server 2000, and Windows Server 2003 C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware Tools\tools.conf [2]
Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 [3] C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware Tools\tools.conf [4]
Linux, Solaris and FreeBSD /etc/vmware-tools/tools.conf
FreeBSD with open-vm-tools 10.1.x or later /usr/local/share/vmware-tools/tools.conf
Mac OS X /Library/Application Support/VMware Tools/tools.conf
  1. If the configuration file does not exist, create it.
  2. The Application Data folder is hidden.
  3. You can edit this file as Administrator.

    For example: Right click Start > All Programs > Accessories > Notepad and select Run as administrator.

  4. The Program Data folder is hidden
Note: There is no need to restart the tools service when the file is edited. The tools service will check this file every 5 seconds (by default) for changes and apply them.

Example Configuration File

VMware Tools installs an example configuration file in the same directory as the location for tools.conf. This file lists the available options with possible values but commented out (with a leading '#' character), together with a description. If you want to change the options, uncomment them and copy this file to tools.conf, or copy parts of it into the tools.conf file.