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Knowledge Base

Overview of VMware Tools (340)

Last Updated: 7/21/2020Categories: InformationalTotal Views: 64529Language:
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Details

This article:

Includes an overview of VMware Tools.

Lists the product documentation that contains instructions for installing VMware Tools.

Provides additional links to VMware Tools installation instructions and troubleshooting information.

For information, see:

VMware Fusion: Overview of VMware Tools for VMware Fusion (1022048)

Installing Tools in VMware vSphere: Installing VMware Tools in vSphere (2004754)

Solution

Overview of VMware Tools

VMware Tools is a suite of utilities that enhances the performance of the virtual machines guest operating system and improves management of the virtual machine. Without VMware Tools installed in your guest operating system, guest performance lacks important functionality. Installing VMware Tools eliminates or improves these issues:

Low video resolution

Inadequate color depth

Incorrect display of network speed

Restricted movement of the mouse

Inability to copy and paste and drag-and-drop files

Missing sound

Provides the ability to take quiesced snapshots of the guest OS

Synchronizes the time in the guest operating system with the time on the host

VMware Tools includes these components:

VMware Tools service

VMware device drivers

VMware user process

VMware Tools control panel

VMware Tools is provided in these formats:

ISOs (containing installers): These are packaged with the product and are installed in a number of ways, depending upon the VMware product and the guest operating system installed in the virtual machine. For more information, see the Installing VMware Tools section. VMware Tools provides a different ISO file for each type of supported guest operating system: Mac OS X,Windows, Linux, NetWare, Solaris, and FreeBSD.

Operating System Specific Packages (OSPs): Downloadable binary packages that are built and provided by VMware for particular versions of Linux distributions. OSPs are typically available for older releases, such as RHEL 6. Most current versions of Linux include Open VM Tools, eliminating the need to separately install OSPs. To download OSPs and to find important information and instructions, see VMware Tools Operating System Specific Packages (OSPs). For a list of supported guest operating systems, see VMware Compatibility Guide.

Open VM Tools (OVT): This is the open source implementation of VMware Tools intended for Linux distribution maintainers and virtual appliance vendors. OVTs are generally included in the current versions of popular Linux distributions, allowing administrators to effortlessly install and update VMware Tools alongside other Linux packages. For more information, see VMware support for Open VM Tools (2073803)

Installing VMware Tools

The steps to install VMware Tools vary depending on your VMware product and the guest operating system you have installed. For information on steps to install VMware Tools in most VMware products, see:

How to install VMware Tools

Installing and Configuring VMware Tools Guide.

Additional Information

VMware Tools are normally bundled with VMware products as well as security updates when applicable. As of VMware Tools version 10, customers also have the option to download from Customer Connect.
Two different downloadable archives are presented, one for recent guest Operating System releases and another that covers older, legacy guest operating system versions.

VMware Tools are typically forward and backward compatible with several product releases. For more information, see VMware Compatibility Guide.

If you experience issues when installing VMware Tools, see these articles for troubleshooting information:

Installing VMware Tools generates a general system error (1004718)

VMware Tools installation fails with Error 1722 (1007306)

Manually Building VMware Tools Kernel Modules in Ubuntu Guests (1008973)

Manually Building VMware Tools Kernel Modules in SLES and SLED Guests (1009129)

On certain Linux guest operating systems, the VMware Tools process vmware-user does not start automatically (1008071)

Note: VMware Tools status can be found in the vmware.log file on the datastore.

For translated versions of this article, see:

Español: Resumen de VMware Tools

Português: Visão geral do VMware Tools

日本語: VMware Tools の概要

Français: Vue d’ensemble des VMware Tools

简体中文: VMware Tools概述

Deutsch: Überblick über VMware Tool

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End Of General Availability of the Free vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi 7.x and 8.x) (2107518)

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Download and Install VMware Fusion (2014097)

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