Overview of VMware Tools

Products

• VMware Desktop Hypervisor
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

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
• Installing Tools in VMware vSphere: Installing VMware Tools in vSphere

Resolution

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, guest OS 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.

Installing VMware Tools

The steps to install VMware Tools vary depending on the VMware product and the installed guest operating system. 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, the option to download VMware Tools is available from the Broadcom Support portal.
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.

Refer to the following troubleshooting articles should an issue occur when installing VMware Tools.

• VMware Tools installation fails with Error 1722
• Manually Building VMware Tools Kernel Modules in Ubuntu Guests
• Manually Building VMware Tools Kernel Modules in SLES and SLED Guests
• On certain Linux guest operating systems, the VMware Tools process vmware-user does not start automatically

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