VMWare complains that tools are outdated but update menu is disabled

[jcverdie]

Hi,

Using VMWare Fusion 12.1 on MacOS 12.4 (Monterey)

Guest OS: Ubuntu 22

When booting, VMWare complains that tools are not up to date but the update menu is greyd out.

Anyone else experiencing this?

Thanks for the help!

[ravipadigela]

for download VMware tools manually link is here:

https://customerconnect.vmware.com/en/downloads/info/slug/datacenter_cloud_infrastructure/vmware_too...

follow article and install tools manually 

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1022525

[jcverdie]

Thanks for the reply!

Unfortunately, it does not look possible to download vmware-tools for ubuntu from your link.

Regarding the manual install, the page indicates another page for ubuntu > 14 where it states to install open-vm-tools manually.

And mine is already up to date 😞

[Technogeezer · Accepted solution]

You do not need to manually install VMware Tools. .

You should be installing open-vm-tools and open-vm-tools-tools-desktop packages provided by Ubuntu from their distribution. Open-vm-tools are recommended by VMware for in-guest tools on Linux. The legacy VMware Tools for Linux are maintained only for older Linux distributions that don’t support open-vm-tools. 

The installation status of open-vm-tools is not reflected in the Fusion GUI. That’s because the tools installation are managed by the guest’s package management. And I believe I read somewhere that the option to install VMware Tools is greyed out for VM types that are known to support open-vm-tools  

[jcverdie]

That would make sense... But then I run into the other problem I've posted: https://communities.vmware.com/t5/VMware-Fusion-Discussions/shared-folders-are-not-visible-after-reb... which seems to be related to the same "mess"...

[Technogeezer]

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@jcverdie wrote:

Thanks for the reply!

And mine is already up to date 😞

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If you have verified that open-vm-tools are installed, then turn that 😞 into 😁👍👍. 
You are good to go, and do not worry about the GUI saying that Tools aren’t installed (usually seen in the shared folder settings) or a grayed out menu (Fusion doesn’t control installation/upgrade of open-vm-tools). 

[jcverdie]

I would not bother *if* I hadn't the shared folder issue from my other post, which is *Really* annoying...

That's what turns a 😁 into a 😪  ...

[wila]

Easy enough to fix.. just add a line to your /etc/fstab.

Which I posted about in your other thread.

--
Wil

[Technogeezer]

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@jcverdie wrote:

That would make sense... But then I run into the other problem I've posted: https://communities.vmware.com/t5/VMware-Fusion-Discussions/shared-folders-are-not-visible-after-reb... which seems to be related to the same "mess"...

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The inability to see the shared folders in the guest is an open-vm-tools issue and not related to the GUI not recognizing that tools are installed.

@wila beat me to the keyboard on this with the solution. Add the line to /etc/fstab as he indicated and the shared folders will be automatically visible after booting the VM. It's a one-time fix.