The Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable package is a prerequisite for installing VMware Tools for Windows 12.2.0 and ships with the VMware Tools 12.2.0 download package. While preparing a Windows guest for installation, VMware Tools runs the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable Package installer which checks for the presence of a more recent version on the guest. If the guest has a more recent version already present, the package does not install.
For a 32-bit Windows guest, the prerequisite version is Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2022 Redistributable [x86] version 14.32.31332.0.
For a 64-bit Windows guest, the prerequisite versions are Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2022 Redistributable [x86] version 14.32.31332.0 and Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2022 Redistributable [x64] version 14.32.31332.0.
- Installing or upgrading to VMware Tools 12.2.0 is not supported for Windows versions that do not meet the prerequisite. Customers should use or upgrade to VMware Tools 11.0.6 until they can update their Windows OS to meet the prerequisites for VMware Tools 12.2.0. Refer to Microsoft's update KB2977003 for latest supported Visual C++ downloads.
- Windows OS level prerequisites
- Windows Server 2022
- Windows 11
- Windows Server 2019
- Windows Server 2016
- Windows 10
- Windows Server 2012 R2 with Microsoft's update KB2919355
- Windows 8.1 with Microsoft's update KB2919355
- Windows Server 2012
- Windows 8
- Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 [SP1] with Microsoft's update KB4474419
- Windows 7 Service Pack 1 [SP1] with Microsoft's update KB4474419
- For details on darwin.iso version, refer to VMware Tools 12.1.0 Release Notes.
- For details on linux.iso, refer to VMware Tools 10.3.25 Release Notes.
- For details on solaris.iso, refer to VMware Tools 10.3.10 Release Notes.
- VMware Tools ISO images are frozen for some end of life guest operating systems. Some ISO images are not included with ESXi in the tools-light VIB. For more details, see the VMware Tools Documentation page. All VMware Tools ISO images are available for download from //customerconnect.vmware.com/home.
- VMware Tools for Windows: 32-bit and 64-bit installer executable [.exe] files are available for download. These files are provided for easier access and installation of VMware Tools in Windows guest operating systems.
Internationalization
VMware Tools 12.2.0 is available in the following languages:
- English
- French
- German
- Spanish
- Italian
- Japanese
- Korean
- Simplified Chinese
- Traditional Chinese
Product Support Notice
- VMware Tools 12.1.0 was the last regular release for macOS. Refer KB 88698 for details.
- The Windows pre-Vista ISO image for VMware Tools is no longer packaged with ESXi. The Windows pre-Vista ISO image is available for download only. For download information, see the Product Download page.
End of Feature Support Notice
- AppDefense support is removed from VMware Tools 12.0.0 version onwards.
- VMware Tools ships PVSCSI floppy images and PVSCSI drivers in Tools ISO for OS installation on a PVSCSI disk controller. The PVSCSI floppy images for supporting OS versions Vista, Server 2008, and Windows 7 are removed from VMware Tools 12.1.0 and later releases.
- "VMXNET 2 [Enhanced]" Network Adapter is not supported. For users who have configured a virtual machine with the "VMXNET 2 [Enhanced]" adapter running Windows Server 2008 R2 version of windows, switching to the VMXNET3 Network adapter is recommended.
- The Tar Tools [linux.iso] and OSPs shipped with VMware Tools 10.3.x release will continue to be supported. However, releases after VMware Tools 10.3.5 only include critical and security fixes. No new features are provided in these types of VMware Tools [Tar Tools and OSPs]. Using open-vm-tools is recommended for the Linux distributions that provide open-vm-tools packages. For more information about open-vm-tools, see KB 2073803. For information on VMware Tools compatibility with guest operating systems, see KB 90203.
Compatibility Notes
- Starting with VMware Tools version 10.2.0, Perl script-based VMware Tools installation for FreeBSD has been discontinued. FreeBSD systems are supported only through the open-vm-tools packages directly available from FreeBSD package repositories. FreeBSD packages for open-vm-tools 10.1.0 and later are available from FreeBSD package repositories.
Installation and Upgrades for this release
VMware Tools can be downloaded from the Product Download page.
The steps to install VMware Tools vary depending on your VMware product and the guest operating system you have installed. For general steps to install VMware Tools in most VMware products, see General VMware Tools installation instructions [1014294].
To set up productLocker to point to the shared datastore, see KB 2004018.
This release provides packages to upgrade VMware Tools 11.2.5 or later deployments using GuestStore.
For specific instructions to install, upgrade, and configure VMware Tools, see the VMware Tools Documentation page.
VMware Tools 12.2.0 provides the following driver versions for Windows:
- Drivers
- VMware Tools 12.2.0
Hardware Drivers
efifwfromhost.bin
1.0.0.0
pvscsi.sys
1.3.26.0
vmaudio.sys
5.10.0.3506
vmci.sys
9.8.18.0
vmmouse.sys
12.5.12.0
vmusbmouse.sys
12.5.12.0
vmxnet3.sys
1.9.12.0
vm3dmp.sys
9.17.05.0001
Software Drivers
vmhgfs.sys
11.0.44.0
vmmemctl.sys
7.5.7.0
vmrawdsk.sys
1.1.7.0
vnetWFP.sys
12.2.0.0
vsepflt.sys
12.2.0.0
vsock.sys
9.8.19.0
Security DLL
vmwsu.dll
2.5.1.0
Resolved Issues
- Error while exporting custom ESXi image as an ISO file
When customer imports offline bundle from VMware Tools 12.1.x or older versions,
- After applying the VMware Tools patch to ESXi versions prior to 8.0a EP, the following error occurs while exporting custom ESXi image as an ISO file:
Expected value ... for attribute 'swplatforms', but found value '[
- After applying the VMware Tools patch to ESXi versions prior to 8.0a EP, the following error occurs while exporting custom ESXi image as an ISO file: