[VMC on AWS] Failing to upgrade the VMware Tools to latest version from 9.4.x for the VM with Windows Server 2003

Products

• VMware Cloud on AWS

Issue/Introduction

To understand and resolve the error occurred while upgrading the VMware Tools in the Windows Server 2003.

Symptoms:

Error occurs while upgrading the VMTools
Error stack:
'vix error code = 21001
Unable to install VMware Tools. An error occurred while trying to access image file'

Resolution

• Windows 2003 server is considered as a legacy OS.

• VMware Tools 10.0.12 freezes support for legacy Guest Operating Systems. Frozen ISO images are available for download from https://via.vmw.com/ESRN

• These ISO images are not shipped with ESXi (7.x) in the tools-light VIB.

• VMware Tools 10.0.12 caters to the legacy guest operating systems Windows 2003.

• Please download the version 10.0.12 of VMware Tools and install it on the OS.

Additional Information

Refer to VMware KB : How to Download ESXi, vCenter Server Patches in Customer Connect