VMware Tools 12.0.6 Release Notes

Introduction

VMware Tools | 21 JUL 2022 | 20104755

Check for additions and updates to these release notes.

What's New

This release resolves the blue screen issue in the NSX environment. For more information about the fix, see Resolved Issues.

Earlier Releases of VMware Tools

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

Before You Begin

VMware Tools 12.0.6 supports the following guest operating systems:

windows.iso

supports 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 12.0.6 and ships with the VMware Tools 12.0.6 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 14.29.30133.0. The prerequisite versions for a 64-bit Windows guest are Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2019 Redistributable (x86) version 14.29.30133.0 and Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2019 Redistributable (x64) version 14.29.30133.0.

Installing or upgrading to VMware Tools 12.0.6 is not supported for Windows versions that do not meet the prerequisite. Customers should continue to use VMware Tools 10.2.x or older until they can patch or update their Windows OS to meet the prerequisites for VMware Tools 12.0.6. Refer to Microsoft's update KB2977003 for the latest supported Visual C++ downloads.

Windows OS level prerequisites

Windows Server 2022

Windows 11

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.iso

supports Mac OS X versions 10.11 and later.

For more information about

linux.iso

, see VMware Tools 10.3.24 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 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 6.5 or later, and using earlier versions of Horizon View Agent, refer to the knowledge base articles:

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

Internationalization

VMware Tools 12.0.6 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

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 will be removed in the next release of VMware Tools.

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 will only include critical and security fixes. No new feature support will be provided for tar tools (

linux.iso

) and OSPs. Use open-vm-tools for those operating systems that support open-vm-tools. For more information about open-vm-tools, see KB 2073803.

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. The VMware Product Interoperability Matrix of VMware Tools 12.0.5 can be applied to VMware Tools 12.0.6.

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 12.0.6 supports the following driver versions on a Windows guest operating system.

Drivers	VMware Tools 12.0.6
Hardware Drivers
efifwfromhost.bin	1.0.0.0
pvscsi.sys	For Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 Release 2 - 1.3.25.0 For Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 Release 2, Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2019, and Windows Server 2022 - 1.3.25.0
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	1.9.5.0
vm3dmp.sys	9.17.01.0002
Software Drivers
vmhgfs.sys	11.0.44.0
vmmemctl.sys	7.5.7.0
vmrawdsk.sys	1.1.7.0
vnetWFP.sys	12.1.0.0
vsepflt.sys	12.1.0.0
vsock.sys	9.8.19.0
Security DLL
vmwsu.dll	2.5.1.0

Resolved Issues

Windows Guest VMs may encounter a blue screen in the NSX environment, when the optional NSX File Introspection component is installed

Windows Guest VM may encounter BSoD in the NSX environment when the optional NSX File Introspection component packaged with VMware Tools 12.0.5 is installed and it gets connected/disconnected to the NSX host component (nsx-context-mux or vshield-endpoint-mux).

For more information, see KB 89028.

This issue is resolved in this release.

Known Issues

VMware Tools Issues

ICMP related IDFW rules not working

When you upgrade to VMware Tools 12.0.0, you can find that ICMP-related IDFW rules are not working as expected.

This problem occurs because starting with VMware Tools 12.x.x and later, ICMP filtering is deactivated by default due to ICMP packet loss issues. For more information about activating registry settings to enable ICMP filtering, see KB 88273.

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.

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.

If you manage ESXi hosts or perform multiple installations of the same Windows OS version on a PVSCSI controller, see KB 82400.

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 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.

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.