You can specify the VMware Tools Components that you want during VMware Tools installation using the command line options and properties, or during the automatic installation process.
VMware Tools provides various VMware Tools Components. You can install these components either during a new installation or an upgrade of VMware Tools.
Silent Install - New Install or Upgrade
The command format for a new install or upgrade is:
setup.exe /S /v "/qn msi_args"
The command format to include all customizable features except those specified, using ADDLOCAL and REMOVE MSI properties is:
- To install all customizable features except the 'Shared Folders' feature, run the command:setup.exe /S /v "/qn REBOOT=R ADDLOCAL=ALL REMOVE=Hgfs"
- To install all customizable features except the 'Shared Folders', 'File Introspection', 'Network Introspection', and 'Salt Minion' features, run the command:
setup.exe /S /v "/qn REBOOT=R ADDLOCAL=ALL REMOVE=Hgfs,FileIntrospection,NetworkIntrospection,SaltMinion"
- The following command shows MSI options and properties to perform a silent installation with a logging file specified that suppresses rebooting when installation is complete. This command also installs all components except the shared folders component.setup.exe /S /v "/qn /l*v ""%TEMP%\vmmsi.log"" REBOOT=R ADDLOCAL=ALL REMOVE=Hgfs"
Silent Install - Modify Install
After a new install or upgrade, to modify the installed customizable features, you can add or remove a component using the ADDLOCAL and/or REMOVE MSI properties:
setup.exe /S /v "/qn msi_args ADDLOCAL=component REMOVE=component"
msi_args can be specified as mentioned above for logging and suppressing of reboot. For more extensive list of msi_args arguments, see Microsoft documentation.
| Feature Name | Description |
|---|---|
| VMCI | Virtual Machine Communication Interface (VMCI) driver allows virtual machines to communicate with the hosts on which they run without using the network. Developers can write client-server applications to the VMCI Sock (vsock) interface to make use of the VMCI virtual device.
VMCI driver is installed by default as part of VMware Tools installation. If the user had disabled this VMCI driver in the setup settings during a previous installation, VMware Tools automatically re-installs VMCI driver during the upgrade.
Note: From this release onwards, VMCI driver cannot be disabled as the VMware Tools System service functionality is dependent on this driver.
|
Other core components installed by default are not visible.
| Feature Name | Description |
|---|---|
| CBHelper | Helper to install of Carbon black Sensor on a virtual machine. |
| Perfmon | Utility for WMI performance logging. Enables performance monitoring between the Guest SDK and the WMI environment. |
| VmwTimeProvider | Time provider for VMware virtual precision clock device. |
| FileIntrospection | The NSX File Introspection driver, vsepflt.sys is the first of the two guest introspection drivers. You can install it separately, without installing the NSX Network Introspection driver.
Note: This component is dependent on the VMCI driver.
|
| NetworkIntrospection | The NSX Network Introspection driver, vnetflt.sys is the second of the two guest introspection drivers.
Note: This component is dependent on the VMCI driver.
VMware Tools 10.2.5 supports vnetWFP driver for Windows 7 and later. |
| ServiceDiscovery | The Service Discovery component enables the discovery of various services running inside a virtual machine.
Note: This user-mode component is dependent on the VMCI driver.
|
| DeviceHelper | The VMware Device Helper component helps to perform a device check and swap in your virtual machine.
Note: This user-mode component is dependent on the VMCI driver.
|
| Hgfs | Hgfs is a VMware shared folders driver that allows files to be shared between your virtual machine and the host computer.
You can use this driver, if you plan to use this virtual machine with VMware Workstation, Player, or Fusion.
Note:
|
| SVGA | The VMware SVGA driver enhances the performance of your virtual video card.
Note: If you exclude this feature, it limits the display capabilities of your virtual machine.
Note: This feature is also available for Windows Arm.
|
| VMXNet | The VMware VMXNet networking driver enhances the performance of your virtual network card. |
| VMXNet3 | The VMware VMXNet3 networking driver enahnces the performance of your virtual network card (ndis5/ndis6). This is the Next-generation VMware VMXnet networking driver for virtual machines that use virtual hardware version 7 and higher. For more information, see the VMware Knowledge Base article KB 1001805. VMXNET3 adds several new features, such as multiqueue support (also known as 'Receive Side Scaling' in Windows), IPv6 offloads, and MSI/MSI-X interrupt delivery. VMXNET 3 is not related to VMXNET or VMXNET 2. Receive Side Scaling is enabled by default. VMware Tools 10.3.0 adds receive data ring support for Windows VMXNET3 driver. Virtual hardware version 7 corresponds to ESX/ESXi 4.x compatibility.
Note: This feature is also available for Windows Arm.
|
| PVSCSI | The VMware Paravirtual SCSI adapters enhances the performance of your paravirtual SCSI devices. |
| EFIFW | The EFIFW driver is used for EFI Firmware update. |
| MemCtl | The Memory Control Driver provides enahnced memory management of the virtual machine.
You can use this driver, if you plan to use a virtual machine in the vSphere environment.
Note: If you exclude this feature, it hinders the memory management capabilities of the virtual machine running in a vSphere environment.
|
| Mouse | The VMware PS2 Mouse driver enhances the performance of your virtual PS2 mouse.
Note: If you exclude this feature, the mouse performance of your virtual machine will decrease.
|
| MouseUsb | The VMware USB Mouse Driver enhances performance of your USB mouse.
Note: This feature is also available for Windows Arm.
|
| Audio | The Audio driver provides audio for your virtual sound card.
Note: This Audio driver is for 64-bit Windows Vista and later operating systems.
|
| VSS | The VSS driver is used for creating automatic backups. This driver is used, if the guest operating system is Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, or other newer operating systems. Linux and older Windows operating systems use the Filesystem Sync driver. |
| BootCamp | The BootCamp driver provides Mac BootCamp support. |
| SaltMinion | Scripts required to set up Salt Minion on a vritual machine. |
