You can poll the Task managed object for its info.state. If it's done successfully, it is Enum success.

http://pubs.vmware.com/vi-sdk/visdk250/ReferenceGuide/vim.TaskInfo.State.html

You are right the method is async call so you have to block your thread by yourself. If you use VI Java API, it's as simple as:

Task task = vm. shutdownGuest();

if(task.waitForme==Task.SUCCESS)

{...}

else

{...}

Steve JIN, VMware Engineering
Creator of VI Java API: http://vijava.sf.net/

Hi,

According to VI SDK API reference vm.ShutdownGuest method just send shutdown command to guest operating system and returns immediately. It does not wait for the guest operating system to complete the operation.
The easiest way to check if operation is completed is to loop and wait vm.runtime.powerstate to change to poweredOff.
You can also check if guest has a pending shutdown command examining vm.guest.guestState == "shuttingdown"

Regards,
Yasen