I’ve had cause to look for the VMware Tools download a couple of times recently, so thought a quick post was in order to cover where you can download all the VMware Tools ISO images from.
VMware Tools should be installed in all VMs running on the ESXi host for increasing VM performance. VM tools improves the administration of VM’s guest OS, helping ensure error-free user interactions. Normally VMware Tools (vmtools) will be installed using the vSphere client, or in bulk using Update Manager, however there are occasions where you may want to download a copy of the ISO. You may want to install an older version of VMtools, or perhaps to look at installing VMtools using a different deployment tool such as SCCM.
How to Download VMware Tools
VMware make all the current and past versions of VMware tools available here. When you go to that URL you will see a page listing current and previous ESXi builds:
Clicking on a directory will show you the tools packages available:
As shown above, there are directories for each supported Guest OS, in which you can find the .iso file to download.
If you want to match up which VMtools version relates to which ESXi build number you can check that out on this page, which lists those mappings:
VMtools Release Notes and Product Documentation
You can find all the release notes and documentation for all the vm tools releases here.
Open VM Tools Download
open-vm-tools is a set of services and modules that enable several features in VMware products for better management of virtual machines. There is more information on open vm tools and download links here.