Guest OS lock settings

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Upgrading ESXi 7.0.3 to ESXi 8.0.3, a different VMs behavior has been noted regarding the setting "Guest OS Lock".

The VMs where the VMX file does not contain a "tools.guest.desktop.autolock" value after upgrade this setting is enabled.

 

Environment

VMware ESXi 7.0

VMware ESXi 8.0

Cause

This is expected behavior.

 

Resolution

The tools.guest.desktop.autolock parameter in ESXi controls whether the guest operating system should be locked when the last remote user disconnects from the VM console

• ESXi 8.0U3: If the value isn’t mentioned in the VMX file, default is TRUE.

• ESXi 7.0.3: If the value isn’t mentioned in the VMX file, defaults to FALSE.

During an upgrade from ESXi 7 to ESXi 8:

• If the value isn’t mentioned in the VMX file, it will change from FALSE to TRUE : the default for version 8.

• If the value is already mentioned in the VMX file, it will keep whatever value you have specified.