VMware Tools 11.3.5 Release Notes
This document contains the following sections
Introduction
VMware Tools | 23 SEP 2021 | 18557794 Check for additions and updates to these release notes. |
What's New
- Updated libxml2 version to 2.9.12.
- Updated OpenSSL version to 1.1.1l.
Earlier Releases of VMware Tools
For earlier releases of VMware Tools, see the VMware Tools Documentation page.
Before You Begin
- VMware Tools 11.3.5 supports the following guest operating systems:
- windows.isosupports Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 and later.
- Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable package is a prerequisite for installing VMware Tools for Windows 11.3.5 and ships with the VMware Tools 11.3.5 download package. While preparing a target Windows guest for installation, VMware Tools runs the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable Package installer which checks for a more recent version on the target guest. If the target guest has a more recent version already present, the package does not install.The prerequisite version for a 32-bit Windows guest is Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2019 Redistributable (x86) version 14.28.29913.0. The prerequisite versions for a 64-bit Windows guest are Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2019 Redistributable (x86) version 14.28.29913.0 and Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2019 Redistributable (x64) version 14.28.29913.0.
- VMware Tools 11.3.5 depends on and ships Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015, 2017, and 2019. While preparing the system for VMware Tools 11.3.5 installation, Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015, 2017, and 2019 is installed on the system as a prerequisite. For Windows versions that do not meet the prerequisites installing or upgrading to VMware Tools 11.3.5 is not supported. You must use VMware Tools 10.2.x or later until you can patch or update Windows OS to meet the prerequisites for VMware Tools 11.3.5. 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) with Microsoft's update. For more information, see KB4474419.
- Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) with Microsoft's update. For more information, see KB4474419.
- darwin.isosupports Mac OS X versions 10.11 and later.
- For more information aboutlinux.iso, see VMware Tools 10.3.23 Release Notes.
- For more information aboutsolaris.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 thetools-lightVIB. For more information, 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:
Internationalization
VMware Tools 11.3.5 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
- After VMware Tools 11.3.5 version, the subsequent releases will no longer support the "VMXNET 2 (Enhanced)" Network Adapter by providing the VMXNet NIC Driver.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 Balloon driver has been removed from MacOs VMware Tools 11.1.0.
- 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.
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 instructions to install, upgrade, and configure VMware Tools, see the VMware Tools Documentation page.
Windows Guest Drivers Installed by VMware Tools
VMware Tools 11.3.5 supports the following driver versions on a Windows guest operating system.
Drivers
| VMware Tools 11.3.5
|
Hardware Drivers | |
efifwfromhost.bin | 1.0.0.0 |
pvscsi.sys |
|
vmaudio.sys | 5.10.0.3506 |
vmci.sys | 9.8.16.0 |
vmmouse.sys | 12.5.10.0 |
vmusbmouse.sys | 12.5.10.0 |
vmxnet.sys | 2.2.0.0 |
vmxnet3.sys | 1.9.2.0 |
vm3dmp.sys | 8.17.03.0005 |
Software Drivers | |
giappdef.sys | 2.3.1.0 |
glgxi.sys | 2.3.0.0 |
vmhgfs.sys | 11.0.42.0 |
vmmemctl.sys | 7.5.5.0 |
vmrawdsk.sys | 1.1.5.0 |
vnetWFP.sys | 11.3.0.0 |
vsepflt.sys | 11.3.5.0 |
vsock.sys | 9.8.17.0 |
Security DLL | |
vmwsu.dll | 2.5.0.0 |
Resolved Issues
VMware Tools installer might fail when a VMware Tools upgrade overlaps with the Windows system updates
In a Windows VM, if a VMware Tools upgrade overlaps with an in-progress Windows system update that requires a system reboot on restart of a VM, it causes some VMware kernel drivers not to upgrade and fail with Windows system error (
0x800f0246
). As a result of this error, VMware Tools installer rolls back the upgrade, and removes VMware Tools along with upgraded VMware kernel drivers from the guest.The VMware Tools 11.3.5 and later installer handles this system error condition by displaying a message to the end-user, then allows the install to proceed. After upgrade completion, including any system restart, run the VMware Tools installer and select the repair option to replace any drivers that failed to upgrade. For more information, see KB 83949.
This issue was resolved in this release.
Applications do not run after upgrading to VMware Tools 11.0.0
Applications may not run correctly when unable to query the graphics memory size from the registry. This can occur in rare cases when an application either requests the AdapterRAM information from WMI or directly from the Windows registry.
This issue was resolved in the 11.3.0 open-vm-tools release.
VMware Tools displays the wrong notification and tray icon in the Windows guest virtual machine when GuestStore is activated or deactivated
In a Windows guest virtual machine, when you activate or deactivate GuestStore on the ESXi host, VMware Tools may display the wrong notification and tray icon.
This issue is resolved in this release.
Known Issues
VMware Tools Issues
VMware Tools upgrade failed with error code 1072 (The specified service has been marked for deletion.)
When you upgrade VMware Tools to a new version and do not delete the previous version of the VMware Tools service, the new VMware Tools version service might fail to install and lead to a fatal error for the upgrade.
To prevent VMware Tools upgrade from failing catastrophically when detecting an incomplete service removal, the new service creation will pause and retry to see if the condition still exists. The VMware Tools installer stops for up to 2 and a half minutes. After this, a fatal error occurs. If the condition does not exist, the upgrade creates the new service and continues.
For more information, see KB 84269.
Workaround:
Retry installing VMware Tools.
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
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 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 SHA-2 algorithm exclusively starting December 3, 2019. Hence, legacy Windows systems without SHA-2 code signing support fail driver signature verification.
Workaround:
For more information, see KB 78708.
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.
After upgrading to a new VMware Tools version with installer parameter to remove the NetworkIntrospection feature, earlier version of vnetflt or vnetWFP driver service still runs
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:
For more information, see KB 78016.
VMware Tools Issues in VMware Workstation or Fusion
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 themodprobe.blacklist=vmwgfxlinux kernel boot option.
- To gain access to larger resolutions, removesvga.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
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, and Windows Server 2008 R2, the WDDM driver fails on Windows Update installation.
WDDM driver is available through the Windows Update service when the driver publication process is completed.