Upgrading VMware Tools
You can upgrade
VMware Tools manually, or you can configure virtual machines to check for and
install newer versions of VMware Tools.
The guest operating system
checks the version of VMware Tools when you power on a virtual machine. The
status bar of your virtual machine displays a message when a new version is
available.
For vSphere virtual machines,
is displayed when the installed version of VMware Tools is out of date.A newer version of Tools is available for this VM
In Windows virtual machines,
you can set VMware Tools to notify you when an upgrade is available. If this
notification option is enabled, the VMware Tools icon in the Windows taskbar
includes a yellow caution icon when a VMware Tools upgrade is available.
To install a VMware Tools
upgrade, you can use the same procedure that you used for installing VMware
Tools the first time. Upgrading VMware Tools means installing a new version.
For Windows and Linux guest
operating systems, you can configure the virtual machine to automatically
upgrade VMware Tools. Although the version check is performed when you power on
the virtual machine, on Windows guest operating systems, the automatic upgrade
occurs when you power off or restart the virtual machine. The status bar
displays the message
Installing VMware Tools ...
when an upgrade is in
progress. The procedure is mentioned below.
Upgrading VMware Tools on
Windows guest operation systems automatically installs the WDDM graphics
drivers. The WDDM graphics driver allows the sleep mode available in guest OS
power settings to adjust the sleep options. For example, you can use the sleep
mode setting
Change when
the computer sleeps
to configure your guest OS to automatically go
to sleep mode after a certain time or prevent your guest OS from automatically
switching to sleep mode after being idle for some time.
For vSphere virtual machines, you can use one
of the following processes to upgrade multiple virtual machines at the same
time.
- Log in to vCenter Server, select a host or cluster, and on theVirtual Machinestab specify the virtual machines on which to perform a VMware Tools upgrade.
- UsevSphere Lifecycle Managerto perform an orchestrated upgrade of virtual machines at the folder or data center level.
Some
features in a particular release of a VMware product might depend on installing
or upgrading to the version of VMware Tools included in that release. Upgrading
to the latest version of VMware Tools is not always necessary. Newer versions
of VMware Tools are compatible with several host versions. To avoid unnecessary
upgrades, evaluate whether the added features and capabilities are necessary
for your environment.
Compatibility
| Description
|
---|---|
ESXi 7.0 and later | This virtual machine (hardware version 17) is
compatible with ESXi 7.0 and later. |
ESXi 6.7 Update 2 and later
| This virtual machine (hardware version 15) is compatible with ESXi 6.7
Update 2 and ESXi 7.0. |
ESXi 6.7 and later
| This virtual machine (hardware version 14) is compatible with ESXi 6.7,
ESXi 6.7 Update 2, and ESXi 7.0. |
ESXi 6.5 and later
| This virtual machine (hardware version 13) is compatible with ESXi 6.5,
ESXi 6.7, ESXi 6.7 Update 2, and ESXi 7.0. |
ESXi 6.0 and later
| This virtual machine (hardware version 11) is compatible with ESXi 6.0,
ESXi 6.5, ESXi 6.7, ESXi 6.7 Update 2, and ESXi 7.0. |
ESXi 5.5 and later
| This virtual machine (hardware version 10) is compatible with ESXi 5.5,
ESXi 6.0, ESXi 6.5, ESXi 6.7, ESXi 6.7 Update 2, and ESXi 7.0. |
ESXi 5.1 and later
| This virtual machine (hardware version 9) is compatible with ESXi 5.1,
ESXi 5.5, ESXi 6.0, ESXi 6.5, ESXi 6.7, ESXi 6.7 Update 2, and ESXi
7.0. |
ESXi 5.0 and later
| This virtual machine (hardware version 8) is compatible with ESXi 5.0,
ESXi 5.1, ESXi 5.5, ESXi 6.0, ESXi 6.5, ESXi 6.7, ESXi 6.7 Update 2,
and ESXi 7.0. |
ESX/ESXi 4.x and later
| This virtual machine (hardware version 7) is compatible with ESX/ESXi 4.x,
ESXi 5.0, ESXi 5.1, ESXi 5.5, ESXi 6.0, ESXi 6.5, ESXi 6.7, ESXi 6.7
Update 2, and ESXi 7.0. |
ESX/ESXi 3.5 and later
| This virtual machine (hardware version 4) is compatible with ESX/ESXi 3.5,
ESX/ESXi 4.x, ESXi 5.1, ESXi 5.5, ESXi 6.0, ESXi 6.5, ESXi 6.7, ESXi
6.7 Update 2, and ESXi 7.0. It is also compatible with VMware
Server 1.0 and later. ESXi 5.0 does not allow creation of virtual
machines with ESX/ESXi 3.5 and later compatibility, but you can run
such virtual machines if they were created on a host with different
compatibility. |
For more information,
see the VMware Compatibility Guide at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility.