I needed to upgrade VMware Tools on a large number of virtual machine for a customer who is currently going through a migration from VMware ESX 4.1 to VMware ESXi 5.5. The customer is also going to use Trend Micro Deep Security for the host level antivirus protection and therefore needs to install VMware Tools with vShield Driver integration.
Here is how you install / upgrade VMware Tools from the command line:
setup64.exe /S /v "/qn REBOOT=R ADDLOCAL=ALL REMOVE=Hgfs,Sync,Audio,Unity,PerfMon,WYSE,BootCamp,Debug,ThinPrint"
Where:
/S – Silent, non-GUI installation
/v – pass parameters directly to MSI
REBOOT=R – ReallySuppress the server reboot. Note The installer may indicate if a reboot is necessary by exiting with ERROR_SUCCESS_REBOOT_REQUIRED.
ADDLOCAL=ALL – Install all components locally
REMOVE=component(s) – Component or components (separated by comma) that will NOT be installed / excluded. Please refer to Names of VMware Tools Components Used in Silent Installations article to identify what components you can exclude in your environment.
There are a couple of notes on troubleshooting scripted VMware Tools installation:
- Check
%TEMP%/vmmsi.log*.logto ensure all the components have been installed as required; - If script does not work, most likely some of the components are not applicable to the version of ESXi host or Guest OS that you run. Check
%TEMP%/vmmsi.log_YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS_Failed.logand look for errors like
“MSI (s) (F4:6C) [09:36:12:064]: Product: VMware Tools -- Error 2711.The specified Feature name ('Debug') not found in Feature table.”
Error 2711.The specified Feature name ('Debug') not found in Feature table.
In this example, remove Debug feature from the script and run it again. You may get similar message about another feature, remote it and so and so and so.
Check if VMware vShield driver is installed and running.
- Run msinfo32.exe
- Navigate to “Software Components“, “System Drivers“
- Check if the “vsepflt” / “VFileFilter” system driver is in the list and the state is Running with status OK.
Follow this link to download the latest or the old version of VMware Tools:
http://packages.vmware.com/tools/esx/latest/
Hope this will help.
Hi!, I’m trying to use the same parameters, but using the advanced box from vClient or Web Client, but It don’t works… Could you install by this method?, the command from the guest works, but from the vClient not.
Hmmm. Never tried it myself. Have you tried just the MSI portion of the command ie “/qn REBOOT=R ADDLOCAL=ALL REMOVE=Hgfs,Unity,PerfMon,WYSE,BootCamp,Debug,ThinPrint”?
This worked for me ! It was really a headache for me … But i have modified the command with ******************** setup64.exe /S /v “/qn REBOOT=R ADDLOCAL=ALL REMOVE=Hgfs,Sync,Audio,Unity,PerfMon,WYSE,BootCamp,Debug,ThinPrint” **************** No more 256, 258 flood in the event log
Thank
Mounted vmtools.iso to the server and executed the below command
cd /d D:
setup64.exe /S /v “/qn REBOOT=R ADDLOCAL=ALL REMOVE=Perfmon”
I’m using the exact same syntax as Kalanithi to upgrade the Tools and remove PerfMon, but I get the Error 2711. The VM is on ESXi 5.5 3116895. If it matters, the vCenter Server is at 6.
It doesn’t look as though PerfMon is one the components whose name has changed so I don’t see why I’m getting the failure. (Maybe it has and I just can’t find that information??) I’ve tried multiple Windows VMs, both 2012 R2 and 2008 R2.