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VMware Tools 12.3.0 | 31 AUG 2023 | Build No 22234872

Check for additions and updates to these release notes.

What's New

  • This release resolves CVE-2023-20900. For more information on this vulnerability and its impact on VMware products, see https://www.vmware.com/security/advisories/VMSA-2023-0019.html.

  • Updated OpenSSL version to 3.0.8.

  • Updated libxml2 version to 2.10.4.

  • Updated glib version to 2.71.1.

  • Updated libffi version to 3.3.

  • From VMware Tools 12.3.0 version onwards, workload notifications for NSX distributed malware prevention is enabled.

  • VMware Tools 12.3.0 version provides support for Windows Arm VMs running on VMware Fusion on Apple silicon. See Manually Install VMware Tools on Windows Arm.

    Note:

    This functionality support is limited to:

    • Installer with interactive GUI and command line support

    • 3D Graphics

    • Multiple monitor

    • Resizing fit to window

    • Guest clock time synchronization

    • Soft power operations

    • Desktop events for user switching

    • Drag and drop of files between the host and guest

    • Copy and paste of files and text between host and guest

    • vmrun support for running guest operations.

      For example, transferring files to and from guest, running programs and scripts in the guest.

Earlier Releases of VMware Tools

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

Before You Begin

  • VMware Tools 12.3.0 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 12.3.0 and ships with the VMware Tools 12.3.0 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 14.36.32532.0.

        For a 64-bit Windows guest, the prerequisite versions are Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2022 Redistributable (x86) version 14.36.32532.0 and Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2022 Redistributable (x64) version 14.36.32532.0.

        Refer to Microsoft's update KB2977003 for latest supported Visual C++ downloads.

      • Installing or upgrading to VMware Tools 12.3.0 is not supported for Windows versions that do not meet the prerequisite. Customers should use or upgrade to VMware Tools 11.0.6 until they can update their Windows OS to meet the prerequisites for VMware Tools 12.3.0.

      • 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

    • windows.iso for Windows Arm supports Windows 10 1709 Arm 64-bit and later. 

      • For a Windows Arm guest, the prerequisite version is Microsoft Visual C++ 2022 Redistributable (Arm64) - 14.36.32532.0. Refer to Microsoft's update KB2977003 for latest supported Visual C++ downloads.

      • Installing or upgrading to VMware Tools 12.3.0 is not supported for Windows versions that do not meet the prerequisite.

      • Windows OS level prerequisites

        • Windows 11 Arm

        • Windows 10 1709 Arm

    • For details on darwin.iso version, refer to VMware Tools 12.1.0 Release Notes.

    • For details on linux.iso, refer to VMware Tools 10.3.26 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://support.broadcom.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.

  • VMware Tools for Windows Arm: Installer executable (.exe) files are available for download.

Internationalization

VMware Tools 12.3.0 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 was 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 only. For download information, see the Product Download page.

End of Feature Support Notice

  • 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 are removed from VMware Tools 12.1.0 and later releases.

  • 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 only include critical and security fixes. No new features are provided in these types of VMware Tools (Tar Tools and OSPs). Using open-vm-tools is recommended for the Linux distributions that provide open-vm-tools packages. For more information about open-vm-tools, see KB 2073803. For information on VMware Tools compatibility with guest operating systems, see KB 90203.

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 12.3.0 provides the following driver versions for Windows x86 and x64:

  • Drivers
  • VMware Tools 12.3.0

Hardware Drivers

efifwfromhost.bin

1.0.0.0

pvscsi.sys

1.3.26.0

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

1.9.12.0

vm3dmp.sys

9.17.06.0003

Software Drivers

vmhgfs.sys

11.0.44.0

vmmemctl.sys

7.5.7.0

vmrawdsk.sys

1.1.7.0

vnetWFP.sys

12.2.0.0

vsepflt.sys

12.3.0.0

vsock.sys

9.8.19.0

Security DLL

vmwsu.dll

2.5.1.0

VMware Tools 12.3.0 provides the following driver versions for Windows Arm:

  • Hardware Drivers

VMware Tools 12.3.0

vmusbmouse.sys

12.5.13.0

vmxnet3.sys

1.9.9.0

vm3dmp.sys

9.17.06.0004

Resolved Issues

Known Issues

VMware Tools Issues

The issues described in this section are not applicable to Windows Arm.

  • When you install VMware Tools 12.3.0 or later with NSX Guest Introspection components on a Windows VM, an information message appears inside the taskbar

    When you install VMware Tools 12.3.0 or later with NSX Guest Introspection components on a Windows virtual machine, the NSX Distributed Malware Prevention icon appears inside the taskbar, and you might see the following message “Protection lost with VMware NSX Distributed Malware Prevention Service”.

    For more information, see the VMware KB article 95309.

  • 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://support.broadcom.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.

    Reboot the Windows system and restart VMware Tools install.

  • 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.

    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.

    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. 

    For more information, see KB 55798.

VMware Tools Issues on Windows Arm

  • Windows Arm VMs encounter either BSOD with DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION or hang.

    Typically with 3D games or resizing remote desktop on VMware Tools 12.3.0, Windows Arm VMs encounter either BSOD with DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION or hang.

    Users can disable 3D acceleration in VM settings. For more information, see KB 95283.

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.

    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.

    Add the modprobe.blacklist=vmwgfx Linux kernel boot option.To gain access to larger resolutions, remove svga.guestBackedPrimaryAware = "TRUE" setting from the VM configuration.

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