VMware Tools 10 release – Not depend to ESXi

VMware has released VMware Tools 10+ version as separate download through MyVMware site.

VMware Tools 10.0.0 is compatible with supported versions of VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0 and later.

https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/info/slug/datacenter_cloud_infrastructure/vmware_vsphere/6_0?ClickID=cslsai7la4vexxaxpwvqfvnlsffa77znanea#drivers_tools

As you aware previously each time there was new release of VMware ESXi and then there was a new release of VMware tools for update. Both of those were tighten together and never released separately. There is great change in that, now VMware tools 10 and higher versions will be released on regular basis separately from ESXi.

You can download this tool and customize and create bucket as per OS and deploy it through deployment tool on multiple VMs. You can club it with patching or other downtime schedule J

Please go through the guest- OS customization link as mentioned below. Also, you can download tool for respective OS. Please refer the below link for more details

Guest OS Customization Support Matrix:

http://partnerweb.vmware.com/programs/guestOS/guest-os-customization-matrix.pdf

VMware Tools Operating System Specific Packages can be downloaded from blow link

https://packages.vmware.com/tools/releases/index.html

What’s new in VMware Tools 10.0? 

Below new functionalities and enhancements has been added to this version of VMware tools.

From the release note.

Common versioning: Infrastructure changes to enable reporting of true versions for VMware Tools Operating System Specific Packages. These changes will depend on host support.

Common Agent Framework: Common Agent Framework (CAF) provides the basic services necessary to simplify secure and efficient management of agents inside the guest virtual machines.

Quiesced snapshots enhancements on Linux: Robustness related enhancements in quiesced snapshot operation. vmtoolsd service supports caching of log messages when guest I/O has been quiesced. Enhancements invmbackup plug in to use a separate thread to quiesce the guest operating system to avoid timeout issues due to heavy I/O in the guest.

Shared folders: For Linux distributions with kernel version 4.0.0 and higher, there is a new FUSE  based Shared Folders client which is used as a replacement for the kernel mode client.

ESXi serviceability: Default vmtoolsd logging is directed to a file instead of Syslog or Event Viewer. Enhanced VMwareToolboxCmd.exe on Windows andvmware-toolbox-cmd on Linux to change vmtoolsd logging levels.

                                                                                      

Known issues:

https://pubs.vmware.com/Release_Notes/en/vmwaretools/1000/vmware-tools-1000-release-notes.html