VMware tools are not showing upgrade available message.

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• Virtual machines showing VMware tools as current though the tools are not on recent version.
• Few VMs though on lower version of VMware tools are showing VMware tools as current.
• Few VMs on other hosts are showing upgrade available even if on same version.
• Click on cluster> VMs tab > manage columns > add vmware tools version status column to check different messages on vmware tools version.

 

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 

Cause

VMware tools are bundled with ESXi host image and VMware Tools ISO image files in the default /locker/packages/vmtoolsRepo partition.

When ESXi is installed or upgraded to specific ESXi version, it will have certain tools version bundled with it.

If the vCenter server is not connected to online repositories, it will not show any update available.

If your vCenter Server has an online connection, vSphere Lifecycle Manager (vLCM) can detect and show available updates Esxi Build and version details for VMware Tools—even if your ESXi host is bundled with an older ISO version

Resolution

Please refer below mapping file to know which ESXi  host version is mapped to which VMware tools version.

Tools Mapping file

e.g 

VMware tools version 12451 (12.5.3) is bundled with esx/8.0p06 which is 8.0 u3g.

Refer Esxi Build and version list

Whichever VMs are on 12.5.3 will display version as current on VMs running on ESXi 8.0 u3g.

And whichever VMs are below 12.5.3 will have upgrade available message on the tools status.

Need to manually upgrade the VMware tools if there are any recent tools version are available which has security fixes.

 

Additional Information

We can create repository on datastore to Upgrade VMware tools using below kb:

Installing or updating VMware Tools repository on a datastore