VMware Tools 11.0.5 Release Notes

Introduction

VMware Tools | 14 JAN 2020 | 15389592

Check for additions and updates to these release notes.

What's New

VMware Tools 11.0.5 offline bundle does not contain VMware Tools vib files for ESXi 5.5.

Updated pcre version to 8.43.

Updated 7zip version to 18.06.

Earlier Releases of VMware Tools

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

Before You Begin

VMware Tools 11.0.5 supports the following guest operating systems:

windows.iso

supports Windows Vista and later.

VMware Tools 11.0.5 depends on and ships Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015, 2017, and 2019. While preparing the system for VMware Tools 11.0.5 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 11.0.5 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 11.0.5. Refer to Microsoft's update KB2977003 for the 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 11.0.5 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 11.0.5 supports the following driver versions on a Windows guest operating system.

Drivers	VMware Tools 11.0.5
Hardware Drivers
vmci	9.8.16.0
vsock	9.8.16.0
pvscsi	1.3.15.0
wddm	8.16.07.0005
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	7.5.5.0
vmhgfs.sys	11.0.40.0
vsepflt.sys	11.0.5.0
vnetflt.sys	11.0.0.0 (For Kernel-Mode Code Signing, Windows Vista and Windows 2008 only)
vnetWFP.sys	11.0.5.0
glgxi.sys	2.3.0.0
giappdef	2.3.0.0
Security DLL
vmwsu.dll	2.0.0.0

Resolved Issues

Memory leak in vmtoolsd

vmtoolsd leaks memory when the vSphere APIs

ListGuestAliases

and

ListGuestMappedAliases

are used.

This issue is resolved in this release.

Known Issues

Automatic upgrade of VMware Tools fails to complete on a Windows Server 2008 SP2 Virtual Machine

Upgrading VMware Tools fails by using any of the following approaches:

Enabling the VM setting

Check and upgrade VMware Tools before each power on

or

From

host/vCenter UI/API

for Windows Server 2008 SP2 VMs.

Workaround:

Refer to KB 76685.

Installing or upgrading versions earlier than VMware Tools 10.3.0 to VMware Tools 11.0.0 might take longer and Windows OS might need a restart

The installation process might appear to be in progress and displays a message similar to the following:

"Preparing 'VMware Tools' for installation..."

During this process, you might be prompted to restart the operating system.

Workaround:

For more information, see KB 55798.

VMware Tools package fails to complete the installation

While installing VMware Tools by running the setup command, a dialog box appears which displays a progress bar. This dialog box displays the progress of the installation of the VC 2017 redistributable package that VMware Tools uses. The VC 2017 redistributable package installation does not complete, preventing the launch of the general VMware Tools installation dialog box.

The VMware Tools installation logs can be found in the temporary folder in the path similar to the following:

%temp%\vminst.log and %temp%\vmmsi.log

The issue is observed with Windows Vista Service Pack 2 operating system which has Microsoft Document Explorer 2008 package installed when VMware Tools installs the Microsoft VC 2017 redistributable package.

Workaround:

To install VMware Tools, perform the following steps.

Uninstall the Microsoft Document Explorer 2008 package from the Windows Vista Service Pack 2 operating system.

Install or upgrade VMware Tools by running the setup again.

Event Viewer driver warnings generated by VMware Tools boot start drivers glxgi, pvscsi, vsepflt, and vsock

When you have a secure boot VM with Microsoft Hyper-V and virtualization-based security enabled with Device Guard and Code Integrity policy set to enforced, then drivers, glxgi, pvscsi, vsepflt, and vsock might generate the event log warnings similar to the following.

Log Name: Microsoft-Windows-CodeIntegrity/Operational
Source: Microsoft-Windows-CodeIntegrity
Operational Log:
Warnings
Event ID: 3083
Level: Warning
Description:
Code Integrity determined kernel module system32\DRIVERS\vsock.sys that did not meet the WHQL requirements is loaded into the system.Check with the publisher to see if a WHQL compliant kernel module is available.

Workaround:

These warnings are safe to ignore. The drivers load and operate in the normal manner.

AppDefense driver glxgi logs an error in the event viewer

AppDefense driver

glxgi

logs an error in the event viewer similar to the following:

"

The glxgi service failed to start due to the following error: A device attached to the system is not functioning.

"

The events are observed when Guest Integrity is disabled.

Workaround:

These events do not impact the system and are safe to ignore.

The VMware Tools user service process stops after startup when you log in to a Windows Server OS remote desktop session

When you log in to a Windows Server OS remote desktop session, the VMware Tools user service process stops after startup.

For more information, see KB 74808.

Workaround:

If the VMware Tools user process is not present on the system, it can be started manually using the Windows Run Command box or from a command prompt.

To launch the VMware Tools process using the Windows run command box, perform the following steps.

Open the Windows Run
dialog by pressing the Windows + R keys at the same time.

To start the VMware Tools process, run the following command:

"C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools\vmtoolsd.exe" -n vmusr

.

Drag functionality fails to work in Ubuntu.

Drag functionality fails to work in Ubuntu 16.04.4 32-bit virtual machine installed using easy install. Also, failure of copy and paste functionality is observed in the same system.

Add the

modprobe.blacklist=vmwgfx

linux kernel boot option.

To gain access to larger resolutions, remove

svga.guestBackedPrimaryAware = "TRUE"

option from the VMX file.

Shared Folders mount is unavailable on Linux VM.

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

Note: This issue is applicable for VMware Tools running on Workstation and Fusion.

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