Start, Stop, and Restart VMware Tools Services In Guest Operating Systems

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VMware tools are an important additional utility installed in the guest operating system. The Tools service starts when the guest operating system starts. The service establishes secure communication between the host and the guest operating systems.

The program that runs in the background of a guest operating system is known as vmtoolsd.exe in Windows, vmware-tools-daemon in Mac OS X, and vmtoolsd in Linux Guest Operating Systems. There is some important usage of this service as below:

  • Establish secure communication between the ESXi hosts to the guest operating system.
  • It helps to customize the guest operating system.
  • Synchronizes the time in the guest operating system with the time on the host.
  • In Windows guest operating systems, it allows the pointer to move freely between the guest and the vSphere Web Client.
  • It provides a drag-and-drop feature.
  • Automatically adjust screen display resolutions.
  • In Windows and Linux guest operating systems, helps create the quiesced snapshots used by certain backup applications.
  • It sends a heartbeat to the VMware product to indicate that the guest operating system is running.
  • It allows you to copy and paste text between the guest operating system and the vSphere Web Client.

Manually start, stop, or restart VMware Tools in Windows based guest operating systems

You should be able to log in to the server operating system and follow the below steps to start, stop, or restart the services in the OS:

  1. Open Command Prompt and Type services.msc, hit enter.
  2. You will be able to see the MMC or Services console.
  3. Go To vmware tools service and right-click to get an option for start, stop, and restart. Perform the operation of your choice.

Manually start, stop, or restart VMware Tools in Linux based guest operating systems

You should be logged in as root user in order to execute below commands:

To Start:

/etc/vmware-tools/services.sh start

To Stop:

/etc/vmware-tools/services.sh stop

To Restart:

/etc/vmware-tools/services.sh restart

To know/verify the status of Tools, use the below command:

status vmware-tools

Installing and Upgrading VMware Tools

It is part of the process of creating a new virtual machine, and upgrading the tools is part of the process of keeping your virtual machine up to current standards. You may follow the step here to know more about installing and upgrading VMware Tools in the guest operating systems.

Uninstall VMware Tools

To uninstall the VMware Tools from the guest operating system, follow the steps here.

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