This article gives the compatibility of VMware Tools with guest operating systems. 

Please review the following important support considerations:

• VMware Tools installed in a virtual machine can be upgraded independently from the underlying VMware platform product. VMware Tools will gracefully degrade depending on the virtual machine hardware version and the VMware platform product's capabilities (forward and backward compatible).

• Upgrading to newer versions of VMware Tools will provide bug fixes, enable access to new features and improve support for new guest operating system releases. Please see the release notes for VMware Tools versions for more detailed information.

• VMware Tools releases and each VMware platform product release (vSphere, Workstation and Fusion) have independent support lifecycles.  See the VMware Product Lifecycle Matrix (https://lifecycle.vmware.com/#/) for details. Upgrading to newer versions of VMware Tools may also be necessary to stay within the generally supported life cycle phase for VMware Tools.

• Each VMware platform product publishes compatibility information for guest operating system releases in the VMware Compatibility Guide (VCG).

• VMware Tools includes components that enable optional VMware products and solutions, such as Horizon, NSX, and CarbonBlack. The guest operating system compatibility specified in this article only indicate the general minimum VMware Tools compatibility. Use of additional optional VMware products and solutions may require newer versions of VMware Tools beyond what is specified in this article. Please consult the documentation for the other VMware products.

• To ensure a configuration is fully supported, confirm: 

1. Compatibility of VMware Tools with guest operating system (this article),
2. Compatibility of the VMware platform product with guest operating system (VCG),
3. Compatibility of optional VMware products and solutions with guest operating system.
4. The support lifecycle of each VMware product.

The following sections include compatibility information for each operating system type.

Microsoft Windows

VMware Tools for Windows is distributed as an ISO that is bundled with VMware platform products and is also available on-line. An MSI is used to install VMware Tools in the Windows operating system.
 

Additional considerations for Windows guest operating systems:

• Supported Windows 10 and Windows 11 Guest Operating Systems for Horizon Agent and Remote Experience, for Horizon 8 2006 and Later (78714)
• Legacy Windows Support Plan for VMware Horizon (76934)

Linux

For Linux guest operating systems, VMware recommends the use of open-vm-tools, which is the open source implementation of VMware Tools.  More detailed information about open-vm-tools is available here:

• 2073803
• vmware / open-vm-tools
• VMware Tools Documentation (Vmware tools Documentation)

Most Linux vendors and communities provide open-vm-tools packages for their newer releases. If a Linux distribution of interest does not provide open-vm-tools or a specific version of open-vm-tools, then please contact the operating system vendor or community. The open-vm-tools packages are available in the following operating systems:

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 and later releases
• SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 and later releases
• Ubuntu 14.04 and later releases
• CentOS 7 and later releases
• Debian 7.x and later releases
• Oracle Linux 7 and later
• Fedora 19 and later releases
• openSUSE 11.x and later releases
• Flatcar Container Linux, all releases
• Rocky Linux 8 and later releases
• AlmaLinux OS 8 and later releases
• Photon OS, all releases

One of the key benefits of open-vm-tools is that updates and patches of the open-vm-tools packages are provided by the operating system vendors. Therefore, maintenance of open-vm-tools can be done at the same time as the underlying operating system. This simplifies maintenance burden and eliminates additional workload downtime.

The following support considerations apply to open-vm-tools:

• VMware is the maintainer of the open-vm-tools project.
• VMware will assist and collaborate with operating systems vendors to support open-vm-tools through the vendor's support processes on certified combinations of guest operating system releases. 
• Each operating system vendor is expected to provide support for the packages that are distribute by the vendor, including open-vm-tools. This includes troubleshooting, providing workarounds and if necessary, providing patches. Only the operating system vendor can provide updates and patches for the open-vm-tools packages distributed by the vendor.
• In order to update to newer version of open-vm-tools, you may need to update to a newer version of the guest operating system. Please contact operating system vendor for more information about availability of specific open-vm-tools versions.
• The VMware Product Lifecycle Matrix (Product Lifecycel Matrix ) for VMware Tools does not apply to open-vm-tools that is distributed by operating system vendors. Instead, open-vm-tools is supported through the operating system vendor's lifecycle and policies.

For older operating system releases where the vendor does not provide open-vm-tools, then it is recommended to install VMware Tools for Linux in the guest operating system. VMware Tools for Linux is distributed on an ISO (linux.iso) in TAR format and installed using a perl script. The perl script can run on variety of Linux distributions. VMware Tools for Linux contains both user space application and kernel modules (drivers). The kernel modules are installed only if guest operating system kernel does not already contain the same kernel modules.

VMware Tools for Linux (linux.iso) has been discontinued in favor open-vm-tools and is no longer available beyond version 10.3.x.

For RHEL, SLES and Ubuntu, VMware Tools are also available in the form of Operating system Specific Packages (OSPs) that may be downloaded and installed using the native package manager. OSP format tools have also been discontinued in favor open-vm-tools and is no longer available beyond version 10.3.x.

Additional considerations for Linux guest operating systems:
The following table details the compatibility of TAR and OSP format VMware Tools with Linux guest operating systems.

• Supported Guest Operating Systems for Horizon Linux Agent for Horizon 8 2103 and Later (87277)

FreeBSD

For the FreeBSD operating system, VMware recommends the use of open-vm-tools, which is the open source implementation of VMware Tools. More detailed information about open-vm-tools is available here:

• 2149806
• vmware / open-vm-tools
• VMware Tools Documentation (Vmware tools Documentation)

The open-vm-tools packages are available for the FreeBSD 10 and later releases.

For older operating system releases where open-vm-tools packages are not available, then it is recommended to install VMware Tools for FreeBSD in the guest operating system. VMware Tools for FreeBSD is distributed on an ISO (freebsd.iso) in TAR format and installed using a perl script. 

VMware Tools for FreeBSD (freebsd.iso) has been discontinued in favor open-vm-tools and is no longer available beyond version 10.1.x.

The following table details the compatibility of VMware Tools for FreeBSD (freebsd.iso) with guest operating systems.

Apple macOS

Support for macOS as a guest operating system will be discontinued on VMware products. Refer to the following article for more information:

• (90203)

Solaris

The last version of VMware Tools for Solaris was 10.3.10.

VMware-tools-10310-release-notes:

• VMware Tools 10.3.10 release freezes support for Solaris guests.