Most of VMware customers faced PSOD issue due to VMware tools version 10.3.0 on the virtual machines.This PSOD is due to the bug in the version for Windows OS and VMware has informed their customers about this issue. This version affecting only vSphere 6.5 customers and for fixing this VMware has released VMware tools 10.3.2 and made the 10.3.0 version deprecated.
In Addition with 10.3.2 release VMware included AppDefense a security management and monitoring solution. This AppDefense agent can be installed on the guest virtual machine using the VMware Tools installer. Note that VMware Tools cannot install the AppDefense component automatically, you have install this component manually.
VMware releases new VMware tools to provide improvement of functionality or a problem, which occurred in the previous release for customers. And you can update VMware tools for VMs using different methods manually, automatically after esxi update or use Manager (VUM) after uploading the tools VIB file.
What’s New
This release of VMware Tools resolves a number of VMware AppDefense issues. It is recommended that VMware AppDefense users use VMware Tools 10.3.2.
Note: VMware Tools 10.3.0 is deprecated due to a VMXNET3 driver related issue. Install VMware Tools 10.3.2, or VMware Tools 10.2.5 or an earlier version of VMware Tools.
VMware Tools 10.3.2 supports the following guest operating systems
• windows.iso supports Windows Vista and later.
VMware Tools 10.3.0 depends on and ships Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable version 14.0. While preparing the system for VMware Tools 10.3.0 installation, Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable is installed on the system as a prerequisite. Installing or upgrading to VMware Tools 10.3.0 is not supported for Windows versions that do not meet the prerequisites and customers should continue to use VMware Tools 10.2.x or older until they can patch or update Windows OS to meet the prerequisites for VMware Tools 10.3.0.
• Windows OS level prerequisites
• linux.iso supports Linux guest operating systems Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5 and later, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 11 and later, Ubuntu 10.04 and later. It also supports other distributions with glibc versions 2.5 and later.•
• darwin.iso supports Mac OS X versions 10.11 and later.
• solaris.iso supports Solaris versions.
• Integration of VMware AppDefense with VMware Tools: VMware Tools installation includes the VMware AppDefense, a security management, and monitoring solution. This data center security solution is based on application control, detection, and response. For more information, see the VMware Tools User Guide.
• Changes in the OpenGL driver: OpenGL driver has been updated for bug fixes and performance improvements
• Vertex buffer object (VBO) optimization
• Display list drawing optimization
• VMware Tools lifecycle using driver update from Windows Update server: This integration will allow you to update the PVSCSI driver during a Windows update. This feature supports PVSCSI for Windows Server 2016 only.
• Shared folders: FUSE-based Shared Folders client which is used as a replacement for the kernel mode client supports Linux distributions with kernel version 3.10 and later.
• VMware Tools user space compiler upgrade: Compiler for VMware Tools 10.3.0 for Windows has been upgraded to Microsoft Visual Studio 2015.
VMware AppDefense
VMware AppDefense is a data center endpoint security product that protects applications running in virtualized environments. Rather than chasing after threats, AppDefense understands an application’s intended state and behavior, then monitors for changes to that intended state that indicate a threat. When a threat is detected, AppDefense automatically responds.
