Updated on: 23rd AUG 2022

VMware Tools | 23rd AUG 2022 | Build 20219665

Check back for additions and updates to these release notes.

What's in the Release Notes

The release notes cover the following topics:

What's New​

Earlier Releases of VMware Tools

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

Before You Begin

  • VMware Tools 12.1.0 supports the following guest operating systems:
    • windows.iso supports Windows 7 SP1 or Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 and later. 
      • The Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable package is a prerequisite for installing VMware Tools for Windows 12.1.0 and ships with the VMware Tools 12.1.0 download package. While preparing a Windows guest for installation, VMware Tools runs the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable Package installer which checks for the presence of a more recent version on the guest. If the guest has a more recent version already present, the package does not install.
        For a 32-bit Windows guest, the prerequisite version is Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2022 Redistributable (x86) version 14.32.31326.
        For a 64-bit Windows guest, the prerequisite versions are Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2022 Redistributable (x86) version 14.32.31326 and Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2022 Redistributable (x64) version 14.32.31326.
      • Installing or upgrading to VMware Tools 12.1.0 is not supported for Windows versions that do not meet the prerequisite. Customers should continue to use VMware Tools 10.2.x or older until they can patch or update their Windows OS to meet the prerequisites for VMware Tools 12.1.0. Refer to Microsoft's update KB2977003 for latest supported Visual C++ downloads.
      • Windows OS level prerequisites
        • Windows Server 2022
        • Windows 11
        • Windows Server 2019
        • Windows Server 2016
        • Windows 10
        • Windows Server 2012 R2 with Microsoft's update KB2919355
        • Windows 8.1 with Microsoft's update  KB2919355
        • Windows Server 2012 
        • Windows 8
        • Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) with Microsoft's update KB4474419.
        • Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) with Microsoft's update KB4474419.
    • darwin.iso supports Mac OS X versions 10.11 and later.
    • For details on linux.iso, refer to VMware Tools 10.3.25 Release Notes.
    • For details on solaris.iso, refer to VMware Tools 10.3.10 Release Notes.
  • 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 https://customerconnect.vmware.com/home.
  • 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 6.5 or later

Resolution on incompatibility and general guidelines: While upgrading ESXi hosts to ESXi 6.5 or later, and using older versions of Horizon View Agent, refer to the knowledge base article:

Internationalization

VMware Tools 12.1.0 is available in the following languages:

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

Product Support Notice

  • VMware Tools 12.1.0 is the last regular release for macOS. Refer KB 88698 for details.
  • 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

  • AppDefense support is removed from VMware Tools 12.0.0 version onwards.
  • VMware Tools ships PVSCSI floppy images and PVSCSI drivers in Tools ISO for OS installation on a PVSCSI disk controller. The PVSCSI floppy images for supporting OS versions Vista, Server 2008, and Windows 7 will be removed in the next release of VMware Tools.
  • "VMXNET 2 (Enhanced)" Network Adapter is not supported.
    For users who have configured a virtual machine with the "VMXNET 2 (Enhanced)" adapter running Windows Server 2008 R2 version of windows, switching to the VMXNET3 Network adapter is recommended.
  • The tar tools (linux.iso) and OSPs shipped with VMware Tools 10.3.x release will continue to be supported. However, releases after VMware Tools 10.3.5 will only include critical and security fixes. No new feature support will be provided 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 about open-vm-tools, see KB 2073803.

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.

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.

This release provides packages to upgrade VMware Tools 11.2.5 or later deployments using GuestStore.

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

Windows guest drivers installed by VMware Tools

VMware Tools 12.1.0 supports the following driver versions on a Windows Guest Operating System:

Drivers VMware Tools 12.1.0
Hardware Drivers
efifwfromhost.bin

1.0.0.0
pvscsi.sys

For Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 Release 2:  1.3.25.0

For Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 Release 2, Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2019, and Windows Server 2022:  1.3.25.0
vmaudio.sys

5.10.0.3506
vmci.sys

9.8.18.0
vmmouse.sys

12.5.12.0
vmusbmouse.sys

12.5.12.0
vmxnet3.sys

1.9.9.0
vm3dmp.sys

9.17.04.0001
Software Drivers
vmhgfs.sys

11.0.44.0
vmmemctl.sys

7.5.7.0
vmrawdsk.sys

1.1.7.0
vnetWFP.sys

12.1.0.0
vsepflt.sys

12.1.0.0
vsock.sys

9.8.19.0
Security DLL
vmwsu.dll

2.5.1.0

Known Issues

The known issues are grouped as follows.

VMware Tools Issues
  • Installation of Windows Vista, Server 2008, or Windows 7 fails in a virtual machine.

    Installing a Windows OS Vista, Server 2008, or Windows 7 in a virtual machine with a boot disk on a PVSCSI controller, fails to install the required PVSCSI driver.

    Download the VMware Tools package version 11.1.5 from https://customerconnect.vmware.com/, extract the contents, and use the VMware Tools windows.iso or the floppies for Windows OS Vista or Server 2008.

    Note:

    Users managing ESXi hosts or having a requirement to perform multiple installations of the same Windows OS version on a PVSCSI controller, can see the steps outlined in KB 84200.

  • ICMP related IDFW rules not working.

    After upgrade to VMware Tools 12.0.0 version, NSX-IDFW customers can find that ICMP related IDFW rules are not working as expected.

    This problem occurs because from VMware Tools 12.x.x version release onwards, ICMP filtering is disabled by default due to ICMP packet loss issue. Refer to KB 88273 for enabling registry settings to enable ICMP filtering.

  • VMware Tools upgrade failed with error code 1072 (The specified service has been marked for deletion.)

    When upgrading VMware Tools to a new version, if the previous version's VMware Tools service is not deleted completely, this incomplete service removal causes installing the new VMware Tools version service to fail and leads to a fatal error for the upgrade.

    When detecting an incomplete service removal to prevent VMware Tools upgrade from failing catastrophically every time, the new service creation will pause and retry to see if the condition clears. The VMware Tools installer will pause for up to 2 1/2 minutes. After this, a fatal error will occur. If the condition clears, the upgrade creates the new service and continues.

    For more information, see KB 84269.

    Workaround:

    Retry installing VMware Tools.

  • After upgrading to a new version VMware Tools with an installer parameter to remove the NetworkIntrospection feature, the old version of the vnetflt or vnetWFP driver service continues to run.

    After the upgrade, the NetworkIntrospection feature is not present in the system's VMware Tools MSI database, but the feature's vnetflt or vnetWFP driver service still exists.

    Workaround:

    Refer to KB 78016. 

    Note: This issue applies to VMware Tools upgrades from versions older than 11.1.0 only.

  • VMware Tools upgrade fails on Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 without SHA-2 code signing support.

    Microsoft has changed Windows driver signing to use the SHA-2 algorithm exclusively starting December 3, 2019. Legacy Windows systems without SHA-2 code signing support fail driver signature verification.

    Workaround:

    Refer to KB 78708.

  • Installing or upgrading versions earlier than VMware Tools 10.3.0 to VMware Tools 11.1.x 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.

  • High CPU usage by VGAuthService.exe process after upgrading to VMware Tools version 12.1.0

    The VMs with vmx option guest_rpc.rpci.usevsocket = "FALSE" are affected.

    Workaround:

    To fix this issue, shut down the VM and remove the vmx option guest_rpc.rpci.usevsocket = "FALSE" from the VM's vmx file.

    This vmx option was a workaround for the issue in KB 2149941 which has been resolved since ESXi 6.0 Patch Release ESXi600-201706001 and ESXi 6.5 Update 1. Newer ESXi versions should not have this vmx option.

VMware Tools Issues in VMware Workstation or Fusion
  • Shared Folders mount is unavailable on Linux VM.

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

    Note: This issue is applicable to 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

  • Drag functionality fails to work in Ubuntu.

    Drag functionality fails to work in Ubuntu 16.04.4 32-bit virtual machines installed using Easy Install. Also, failure of the copy and paste functionality is observed in the same systems.

    Note: This issue is applicable to 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.
VMware Tools Issue in VMware Horizon
  • WDDM driver fails on Windows Update installation when Horizon Agent is installed on Windows 8/Windows 8.1/Windows Server 2008 R2.

    When Horizon Agent is installed on Windows 8/Windows 8.1/Windows Server 2008 R2, the WDDM driver fails on Windows Update installation.

    The WDDM driver will be made available through Windows Update service, when the driver publication process completes.

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