#VCP Are installed on the OS of a VM. Provide more capabilities in the management of the VM but also drivers and general management. VMware tools are highly recommended to be used, especially if any of the capabilites like 10G NIC drivers(VMXNET3) are required. ## Installation the installation process depends on the OS configured on the VM. ### Windows - Install VMware tools directly out of the vSphere Client (right click on VM - install VMware tools) and then run the installer on the ISO inside the Guest OS. - Get the installer directly on the OS and install it directly ### Linux - Most major distributions have the VMware tools inside it's official repositories which is then automatically updating open-vmtools - can be installed directly on the OS aswell manually through a downloaded package from VMware ## Features - General better mouse performance/refresh rate and handling over Console. - Pass Messages from host OS to guest OS - Run scripts automating guest OS operations - synchronize time with the host os - VM image backup tools - vmxnet3 driver support ### VMware Tools vs Open-VM tools(OVT) Open-VM tools is an open source implementation of VMware tools. has different kernel modules for enhancing performance opf VMs running in Linux. Features like guest OS shutdown, communication, clock synchronization and filesystem consistent snapshots are compatible with OVT. OVT is managed only by the OS itself, it comes bundled with the installation ISO and is updated via the distributions repositories. If it is not bundled with the distribution it will require to be installed manually with an rpm, deb package for example. ### VSS Module is only installed on WIndows Vista, WIndows Server 2003 or newer Windows operating systems. Allows for third party backup solutions to create application-consistent snapshots. ### Appdefense(not installed by default) security management and monitoring solution. Can be installed with the VMware Tools installer. ### SVGA Driver enables 32-bit displays and better performance. Replaces the default VGA driver which only allows 640x480 and 16-color graphics ### Mouse driver improves mouse perofrmance ### VMCI Driver Communication Interface driver supports communication between virtual machines and the host. ### Paravirtual SCSI controller enhances performance of some virtualized applications. ### VMXNET3 Driver para-virtual network driver optimized for high performance, high throuhput and minimal latency. ### Memory Balooning driver Allows for Memory Balooning, see [[vSphere - ESXi.md#Memory virtualization#Memory virtualization#Balooning]] for details. ## Upgrade Depending on the OS type, either upgrade through the vSphere client (Windows) or install package through official repository or manually (linux) Can also be done with Lifecycle manager on multiple VMs. ## 🔗Resources