Conflict between Open VM Tools and VMware Tools.

[smithy201110141]

Hi,

My host is Windows 10 and guest Ubuntu 16.04.

When I did a fresh install of Ubuntu a notification appeared at the bottom of the display warning

me that VMware Tools was out of date.  I then tried to update the tools but got the message that

Open VM Tools was already installed.

Now Ubuntu comes with Open VM Tools installed.

So my question is should I uninstall the Open VM Tools and install VMware Tools?

It seems that Ubuntu repositories are not updating Open VM Tools on a regular basis,

at least least that's how I see it.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[bonnie201110141 · Accepted solution]

Open-vm-tools is recommended. Currently the difference between open-vm-tools and VMware Tools is that

1) Open-vm-tools version is always behind VMware Tools. And Ubuntu would update open-vm-tools in their repositories on a regular basis.

2) Open-vm-tools does not have thinprint features. For current 10.0.x open-vm-tools, HGFS is not working well.

So if open-vm-tools cannot satisfy your request, you can remove open-vm-tools (by "sudo apt-get purge open-vm-tools"), and install VMware Tools. Otherwise, you can just use open-vm-tools out of box.

Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks!