This bulletin updates the Tools components of VMware ESXi 4.0 to improve host stability, and may provide minor enhancements to functionality.
An SVGA driver issue might cause the console of RHEL 5.3 virtual machines to display a black screen after the virtual machine is resumed from hibernation mode.
Starting with this release, when you install VMware Tools using the custom option, you can deselect ThinPrint to install Vmware Tools without installing the virtual components of ThinPrint.
The VIX C API CopyFileFromHostToGuest() and CopyFileFromGuestToHost() functions do not preserve any permission bits when copying a file between the host and guest operating systems. The permissions on the destination file are set to the owner's default values, which typically allow only read and write by the owner. For example, if the execute bit is set for the file owner on the Linux host, and you use CopyFileFromHostToGuest() to copy the file to a Linux guest operating system, the copy in the guest operating system has the execute bit cleared. This release fixes the issue of not preserving file access permissions when files are copied from Windows or Linux hosts to guest operating systems or from guest operating systems to Windows or Linux hosts.
On Windows guest operating systems, VMware Tools does not install Guest SDK DLLs (vmGuestLib.dll and vmGuestLibJava.dll) in the system directories (system32 or SysWOW64). This issue is resolved in this release.
The console of FreeBSD 7.2 virtual machine is scrambled and unusable if VMware Tools is not installed.
The ring size of the VMXNET3 network interface card is not configurable in Windows guest operating systems. This issue is resolved in this release. Configuration parameters, such as Rx Ring #1 Size, Rx Ring #2 Size, Tx Ring Size, Small Rx Buffers, and Large Rx Buffers are now configurable from Device Manager (a Control Panel dialog box) in Windows guest operating systems.
This patch fixes an issue with the vmxnet3 driver where Windows virtual machines might stop responding after they are resumed from the standby mode.
Some third-party software programs, such as Microsoft SQL Server, don't share atl71.dll. Therefore, the software doesn't increase the .dll reference count during installation. As part a major VMware Tools upgrade, while uninstalling ATL71, the shared library atl71.dll is removed if its sharing reference count reaches 0. As a result, Microsoft SQL Server functionality might break.
If Linux, Solaris, or FreeBSD virtual machines use character encodings that are not supported, such as EUC_JP Japanese, installation of VMware Tools on the virtual machines might fail.
Network Driver Interface Specification (NDIS) is part of the networking architecture used in Microsoft Windows operating systems. The NDIS transport driver might hold, indefinitely, the buffers received by vmxnet3 drivers, thereby running out of buffers to receive.
Includes updated PMBs for Ubuntu 10.04.
Partitions formatted as ext4 might not appear in the Shrink tab of the VMware Tools Properties dialog box. On Linux systems, you display the VMware Tools Properties dialog box with the following command: /usr/bin/vmware-toolbox &. The ext4 file system is the default file system for certain Linux operating systems, such as Ubuntu 9.10.
Deployment Considerations
None beyond the required patch bundles and reboot information listed in the table above.
