VMware Tools 11.0.0 Release Notes

Introduction

VMware Tools | 19 SEP 2019 | 14549434

Check for additions and updates to these release notes.

What's New

Added ability to map a specific OS volume to the responsive VMDK. For more information, see KB 78427.

Added support for VMware Tools Installer Logging to the Host.

Better integration with Microsoft Update Service. Updated drivers (pvscsi, vmxnet3, and vmci) are available through the same service for Windows Server 2016 and later when the driver publication process completes.

Upgraded compiler for VMware Tools drivers to Microsoft Visual Studio 2017.

VMware Tools is notarized for MacOS 10.14.5 starting with VMware Tools 11.0.0 release.

Added support for additional drivers for AppDefense. This enables the AppDefense guest module to be upgraded without reboot, thus keeping system protection intact. For more details, see Integration of VMware AppDefense with VMware Tools.

Added appInfo to publish information about running applications inside the guest. For more details, see VMware Tools Services.

Added capability for guest admin to control automatic upgrades and adding or removing features. For more details, see Configuring Automatic Upgrade and Installation or Removal of a Component.

Added support for GDI Hardware Acceleration to the WDDM 1.1 driver.

Provided sample

tool.conf

for ease of administration. For details, see Configuration File Location.

Resolved Issues:
Some issues are resolved in this release of VMware Tools which are documented in the Resolved Issues section of this release notes.

Earlier Releases of VMware Tools

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

Before You Begin

CVE-2020-3941 is not present in VMware Tools 11.0.0.

VMware Tools 11.0.0 supports the following guest operating systems:

windows.iso

supports Windows Vista and later.

VMware Tools 11.0.0 depends on and ships Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015, 2017, and 2019. While preparing the system for VMware Tools 11.0.0 installation, Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015, 2017, and 2019 is installed on the system as a prerequisite. Installing or upgrading to VMware Tools 11.0.0 is not supported for Windows versions that do not meet the prerequisites. You must continue to use VMware Tools 10.2.x or later until you can patch or update Windows OS to meet the prerequisites for VMware Tools 11.0.0. Refer to Microsoft's update KB2977003 for latest supported Visual C++ downloads.

Windows OS level prerequisites

Windows Server 2019

Windows Server 2016

Windows 10

Windows Server 2012 R2 with Microsoft update. For more information, see KB2919355.

Windows 8.1 with Microsoft update. For more information, see KB2919355.

Windows Server 2012

Windows 8

Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1)

Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1)

Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 (SP2)

Windows Vista Service Pack 2 (SP2)

darwin.iso

supports Mac OS X versions 10.11 and later.

For more information about

linux.iso

, see VMware Tools 10.3.20 Release Notes.

For more information about

solaris.iso

, see 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.

For the resolution on incompatibility and general guidelines, while upgrading ESXi hosts to ESXi 5.5 Update 3b or ESXi 6.0 Update 1 or later, and using earlier versions of Horizon View Agent, refer to the knowledge base articles:

Connecting to View desktops with Horizon View Agent 5.3.5 or earlier hosted on ESXi 5.5 Update 3b or later fails with a black screen.

Connecting to View desktops with Horizon View Agent 6.0.x or 6.1.x hosted on ESXi 5.5 Update 3b or later fails with a black screen.

Connecting to View desktops with Horizon View Agent 6.1.x hosted on ESXi 6.0 Update 1 or later fails with a black screen.

Internationalization

VMware Tools 11.0.0 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

Starting with the next release, you cannot install VMware Tools on Windows Vista SP2 and Windows Server 2008 SP2.

Balloon driver has been removed from MacOs VMware Tools 11.0.0.

VMware Tools 11.0.0 release freezes support for Solaris guests.

VMware Tools 10.3.5 release supports the tar tools (

linux.iso

) and OSPs. Releases after VMware Tools 10.3.5 include only critical and security fixes and do not support new features in VMware Tools tar tools and OSPs. 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 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.

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.

Windows Guest Drivers Installed by VMware Tools

VMware Tools 11.0.0 supports the following driver versions on a Windows guest operating system.

Drivers	VMware Tools 11.0.0
Hardware Drivers
vmci	9.8.16.0
vsock	9.8.16.0
pvscsi	1.3.15.0
wddm	8.16.07.0000
xpdm	12.1.8.0
vmxnet3	1.8.16.0
vmxnet2	2.2.0.0
vmmouse	12.5.10.0
vmusbmouse	12.5.10.0
vmaudio	5.10.0.3506
efifw	1.0.0.0
Software Drivers
vmrawdsk.sys	1.1.5.0
vmmemctl.sys	7.5.4.0
vmhgfs.sys	11.0.40.0
vsepflt.sys	11.0.0.0
vnetflt.sys	11.0.0.0 (For Kernel-Mode Code Signing, Windows Vista and Windows 2008 only)
vnetWFP.sys	11.0.0.0
glgxi.sys	2.2.0.0
giappdef	2.2.0.0
Security DLL
vmwsu.dll	2.0.0.0

Resolved Issues

Known Issues

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