VMware Tools 10 - Help,My Windows has no YUM
Hey VMware, what happened here? They've devolved VMware Tools out of ESXi but not left even a trail of breadcrumbs to follow for those of us who run Windows environments! Great for those Linux houses who use YUM, away you go but we don't all have MS Configuration Manager or license VMware Mirage to push out your of band updates....
Anyhow, I'm sure there are further Blog posts coming out of VMware but here is the history:
https://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2015/09/vmware-tools-10-0-0-released.html
Release Notes (Cute!):
https://pubs.vmware.com/Release_Notes/en/vmwaretools/1000/vmware-tools-1000-release-notes.html
Download from here:
https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/details?downloadGroup=VMTOOLS1000&productId=491
This is an ISO with the Setup.exe and Setup64.exe inside it.
The official VMware Tools installation & configuration guide is here:
https://www.vmware.com/pdf/vmware-tools-installation-configuration.pdf
here is some initial info to help you install directly on windows:
So I took a Windows Server 2012 R2 VM and did an install using the switches on page 20:
Setup64.exe /s /v"/qn /l*v ""%TEMP%\vmmsi.log"""
This got me a silent install which upgraded existing components and automatically rebooted the VM. I then uninstalled the Tools and reinstalled them with the following switch:
Setup64.exe /v"/l*v ""%TEMP%\vmmsi.log"""
This got me an interactive install but the log file doesn't show the components clearly.
The install guide probably needs updating to get a full list of component choices. This screenshots below are from the interactive install:
The NSX components aren't included by default so a standard install will probably suffice.
So, how do we plan to roll this out in a Windows environment? Well, if you run Setup64.exe /x you get the msi file extracted to the temp folder.
So, now you can look at using WSUS to deploy the update:
https://wsuspackagepublisher.codeplex.com
- Logon Script?
- Startup Script?
- WSUS to publish 3rd party updates
- Powershell with psexec wrapper
- SCCM
There are various guides on the internet for each of the solutions above. Just test them carefully and work out a rollback plan in case things go horribly wrong!
Have Fun out there!
