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GeertCRW
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

VMware Tools 10.1.10 - System tray icon no longer available

Just wanted to know if it's a bug or by design that the system tray icon is removed when you install VMware tools 10.1.10

Grz,

Geert

9 Replies
AishR
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

This does not look like a known issue after reading through the release notes VMware Tools 10.1.10 Release Notes .

May be try the steps in Getting the VMware Tools icon back on the taskbar (136) | VMware KB

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GeertCRW
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Adding the registry key doesn't make a difference.

I have the behavior on all VM's, i have upgraded to the latest VMware tools version.

Also after full uninstall and reinstall of the VMware Tools

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OilerNut
Contributor
Contributor

Same issue here, no taskbar icon, though it doesn't seem to be affecting anything.

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Mackopes
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Getting the same thing here. One thing I noticed is if you login to the VM Console, the tray application will start, but it will NOT through RDP.

On 'earlier' versions, you would see 2 tasks for vmtoolsd.exe in task manager (One running as SYSTEM, and then one running as the user you logged in with).

With 10.1.10, it seems when you RDP, it does not create the vmtoolsd.exe instance.

AK

Mackopes
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Some more detail. I turned up vmtoolsd logging, and when you RDP in, it states 'Exiting the vmuser process on a remote Windows server session.'

Where with say VMRC/Console, it will continue on loading all the stuff.

I have a ticket open with support so we will see what they say.

AK

jwckauman
Contributor
Contributor

I am also noticing this behavior.  Thanks to whoever mentioned that using vsphere to console to the server will still allow the system tray icon to be shown (but not with RDP). On that note, I noticed if you already have a RDP session running, and you use vsphere console to take over that session, you do NOT see the system tray icon.  To get the icon to show up, you have to login from a vsphere console session from scratch. 

Any word from VMware on this?  I may open a ticket as well.


Thanks!

Jim

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Mackopes
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Still waiting on a final answer from development. It's 'looking' like it might be 'expected behavior'. If that's indeed the case, I'm pressing for an update to the Release Notes to give people a heads up.

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Mackopes
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

OK, they have updated the Release notes on this. It is 'by design'

VMware Tools 10.1.10 Release Notes

Mouse movements in RDP sessions to Windows virtual machines are affected by MKS console mouse movements

If an administrator uses the vSphere Client to open a console to a Windows virtual machine on which multiple users are logged in through terminal sessions, their mouse movements might become synchronized with the mouse movements of the administrator.

Note: Due to these changes, VMware Tools icon in the system tray will not be displayed in an RDP session. To check the version of VMware Tools, run the command in the command prompt:


"C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools\VMwareToolboxCmd.exe" -v

This issue is resolved in this release.

rblissitt
Contributor
Contributor

With Windows Server 2016, at least, I've had much better luck having the VMware Tools icon appear in the Systray when I run the installer as Administrator.  (If I've forgotten to run the installation as Administrator, I do a Repair install as Administrator and that fixes it as well.)  This is all from the console; nothing to do with Remote Desktop.

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