This article gives the compatibility of VMware Tools with guest operating systems.
Please review the following important support considerations:
VMware Tools installed in a virtual machine can be upgraded independently from the underlying VMware platform product. VMware Tools will gracefully degrade depending on the virtual machine hardware version and the VMware platform product's capabilities (forward and backward compatible).
Upgrading to newer versions of VMware Tools will provide bug fixes, enable access to new features and improve support for new guest operating system releases. Please see the release notes for VMware Tools versions for more detailed information.
VMware Tools releases and each VMware platform product release (vSphere, Workstation and Fusion) have independent support lifecycles. See the VMware Product Lifecycle Matrix (lifecycle - Support Portal - Broadcom support portal) for details. Upgrading to newer versions of VMware Tools may also be necessary to stay within the generally supported life cycle phase for VMware Tools.
Each VMware platform product publishes compatibility information for guest operating system releases in the VMware Compatibility Guide (VCG).
VMware Tools includes components that enable optional VMware products and solutions, such as Horizon, NSX, and CarbonBlack. The guest operating system compatibility specified in this article only indicate the general minimum VMware Tools compatibility. Use of additional optional VMware products and solutions may require newer versions of VMware Tools beyond what is specified in this article. Please consult the documentation for the other VMware products.
To ensure a configuration is fully supported, confirm:
The following sections include compatibility information for each operating system type.
VMware Tools for Windows is distributed as an ISO that is bundled with VMware platform products and is also available on-line. An MSI is used to install VMware Tools in the Windows operating system.
OS Release | Compatible VMware Tools Versions | Note |
Window Server 2025 |
11.3.0 or later | VMware Tools 12.5.0 or later is recommended |
Window Server 2022 Windows 11 |
10.3.5 or later | VMware Tools 12.0.0 or later is recommended |
Windows Server 2019 | 10.1.0 or later | |
Windows Server 2016 Windows 10 |
10.1.0 or later | |
Windows Server 2012 Windows 8 |
10.1.0 or later | |
Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Windows 7 SP1 |
10.1.0 or later | |
Windows Server 2008 R2 Windows 7 |
10.1.0 through 11.0.6 | |
Windows Server 2008 SP2 Windows Vista SP2 |
10.1.0 through 11.0.6 | |
Windows Server 2008 Windows Vista |
10.1.0 through 10.2.5 | |
Windows Server 2003 WIndows XP Windows 2000 |
10.0.0 through 10.0.12 | Use winPreVista.iso |
Windows NT, 95, 98 | 7.4.6 through 7.7.0 | Use winPre2k.iso |
Additional considerations for Windows guest operating systems:
For Linux guest operating systems, VMware recommends the use of open-vm-tools, which is the open source implementation of VMware Tools. More detailed information about open-vm-tools is available here:
Most Linux vendors and communities provide open-vm-tools packages for their newer releases. If a Linux distribution of interest does not provide open-vm-tools or a specific version of open-vm-tools, then please contact the operating system vendor or community. The open-vm-tools packages are available in the following operating systems:
One of the key benefits of open-vm-tools is that updates and patches of the open-vm-tools packages are provided by the operating system vendors. Therefore, maintenance of open-vm-tools can be done at the same time as the underlying operating system. This simplifies maintenance burden and eliminates additional workload downtime.
The following support considerations apply to open-vm-tools:
For older operating system releases where the vendor does not provide open-vm-tools, then it is recommended to install VMware Tools for Linux in the guest operating system. VMware Tools for Linux is distributed on an ISO (linux.iso) in TAR format and installed using a perl script. The perl script can run on variety of Linux distributions. VMware Tools for Linux contains both user space application and kernel modules (drivers). The kernel modules are installed only if guest operating system kernel does not already contain the same kernel modules.
VMware Tools for Linux (linux.iso) has been discontinued in favor open-vm-tools and is no longer available beyond version 10.3.x.
For RHEL, SLES and Ubuntu, VMware Tools are also available in the form of Operating system Specific Packages (OSPs) that may be downloaded and installed using the native package manager. OSP format tools have also been discontinued in favor open-vm-tools and is no longer available beyond version 10.3.x.
Additional considerations for Linux guest operating systems:
The following table details the compatibility of TAR and OSP format VMware Tools with Linux guest operating systems.
OS Release | Compatible VMware Tools Versions | Open- vm- tools | Notes |
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.x or later Oracle Linux 8.x or later CentOS 8.x or later Asianux 8.x or later |
N/A
|
Available
|
|
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.x Oracle Linux 7.x CentOS 7.x Asianux 7.x |
9.0.10 through 10.3.x
|
Available
|
|
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.x Oracle Linux 6.x CentOS 6.x Asianux 4.x |
8.0.0 through 10.3.x
|
Not available
|
|
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.x Oracle Linux 5.x CentOS 5.x Asianux 3.x |
7.4.6 through 10.3.22
|
Not available
|
|
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.x Oracle Linux 4.x CentOS 4.x |
7.4.6 through 10.0.12
|
Not available
|
|
Red Hat Enterprise
Linux 3.x |
7.4.6 through 10.0.12
|
Not available
|
|
SUSE Linux
Enterprise 12 or later |
N/A
|
Available
|
|
SUSE Linux
Enterprise 11 |
7.4.7 through 10.3.x
|
Available
|
|
SUSE Linux
Enterprise 10 |
7.4.6 through 10.0.12
|
Not available
|
|
SUSE Linux
Enterprise 9 |
7.4.6 through 10.0.12
|
Not available
|
|
Ubuntu 16.04 or later
|
9.4.0 through 10.3.x
|
Available
|
|
Ubuntu 14.04
|
9.0.10 through 10.3.x
|
Available
|
|
Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
|
8.3.12 through 10.3.x
|
Not available
|
|
Ubuntu 10.04 LTS
|
8.0.3 through 10.3.2 | Not available | |
Ubuntu 7.04 or Ubuntu < 10.04 | 7.4.6 through 10.0.12 | Not available |
|
Photon 2.0 or later | N/A | Available |
|
Debian 11.x (Bullseye) or later | N/A | Available |
|
Debian 10.x (Buster) | 10.1.0 through 10.3.x | Available |
|
Debian 9.x (Stretch) | 9.10.0 through 10.3.x | Available |
|
Debian 8.x (Jessie) | 9.10.0 through 10.3.x | Available |
|
Debian 7.x (Wheezy) | 9.4.0 through 10.3.x | Available |
|
Supported Guest Operating Systems for Horizon Linux Agent for Horizon 8 2103 and Later -- Supported Guest Operating Systems for Horizon Linux Agent for Horizon 8 2103 and Later (87277) (omnissa.com)
For the FreeBSD operating system, VMware recommends the use of open-vm-tools, which is the open-source implementation of VMware Tools. More detailed information about open-vm-tools is available here:
The open-vm-tools packages are available for the FreeBSD 10 and later releases.
For older operating system releases where open-vm-tools packages are not available, then it is recommended to install VMware Tools for FreeBSD in the guest operating system. VMware Tools for FreeBSD is distributed on an ISO (freebsd.iso) in TAR format and installed using a perl script.
VMware Tools for FreeBSD (freebsd.iso) has been discontinued in favor open-vm-tools and is no longer available beyond version 10.1.x.
The following table details the compatibility of VMware Tools for FreeBSD (freebsd.iso) with guest operating systems.
OS Release | Compatible VMware Tools Versions | Notes |
FreeBSD 11.x or later | N/A |
|
FreeBSD 10.x | 9.4.10 through 10.1.x |
|
FreeBSD 9.x | 9.0.0 through 10.1.x |
Support for macOS as a guest operating system will be discontinued on VMware products. Refer to the following article for more information:
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OS Release | Compatible VMware Tools Versions | Note |
macOS versions 10.11 and later | 10.1.0 through 12.1.1 |
|
macOS versions 10.10.x and older | 9.10.0 through 10.0.12 |
|
The last version of VMware Tools for Solaris was 10.3.10.
VMware-tools-10310-release-notes:
VMware Tools 10.3.10 release freezes support for Solaris guests.
OS Release | Compatible VMware Tools Versions | Note |
Solaris 10.x, 11.x | 7.4.6 through 10.3.10 | solaris.iso |