VMware has introduced a new download page for VMware Tools and included it in the product lifecycle matrix. We all know the benefits of VMware Tools for a Virtual Machine. It is an indispensable component of the vSphere environment, be it to enhance the VM’s overall performance or to ensure that VMs are secure, safeguarded, and hardened. VMware tools have always played an essential and critical role.
We know, up till now, VMware Tools were developed and released as a subset of vSphere. You could download VMware tools from the “tools and driver” section, present under the vSphere section from my.vmware.com portal. It seems this method is fine but over the long-term it started posing some challenges:
- VMware Tools end of support policy was not clearly documented.
- Customers are always curious to know when a specific VMware Tools version will go end of support. Without clear instructions on the VMware Tools end of support policy, customers found it hard to plan and upgrade VMware Tools.
- Downloading VMware Tools from my.vmware.com portal required multiple steps, making the whole process a bit too tedious.
Now VMware Tools has been made a product of VMware. VMware Tools are independently available and can be downloaded as a separate product from my.vmware.com portal. This essentially means that VMware Tools will also feature in VMware Lifecycle Product Matrix, giving customers full visibility about the VMware Tools lifecycle.
By following the VMware Lifecycle Matrix, you can plan an upgrade very easily. This change will also make downloading any version of VMware Tools more convenient. Earlier, VMware Tools used to be listed under the “Drivers and Tools” tab on the vSphere download page, but with this change, the latest version can be found under the “Product Downloads” tab as a separate product.
VMware Version-Mapping File
VMware version-mapping file, provides a one-to-one mapping between VMware Tools for ESX/ESXi version-number codes, and paths to OSP repositories suitable for that Tools version. The ESXi server mapping is only to show that the particular version of Tools ships with that particular ESXi server build number, but the Tools can work with a greater range of ESXi versions. To know more on the visit the link: VMware Version-Mapping File.
Source: KB Article 78528
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