VMware Fusion 25H2u1 Upgrade Experience (VMware Tools Update Fail)

[Macatak]

I am sharing the upgrade experience from 25H2 to 25H2u1, specifically addressing a VMware Tools update issue.

This is on macOS Sonoma 14.8.4 on an Intel 2019 27" Retina iMac.

After the 25H2u1 app was installed, upon launching the Windows 10 VM it immediately initiated a VMware Tools update. I noticed a Windows tray notification message that the VMware Tools Service was not running. (In hindsight, that maybe should have been a clue.)

The installation failed, throwing unable to install mouse and EFI drivers messages.

A few attempts failed.

So I shut down the VM, closed VMware Fusion and replaced the VM with a backup copy (ALWAYS keep a current spare VM!) to eliminate any potential file corruption.

After restarting VMware Fusion and opening the fresh VM, once it started the VMware Tools installation I cancelled that.

I then uninstalled the current VMware Tools (13.0.5) and restarted Windows. The VM reverted to its default base configuration (i.e., basic display resolution).

I then manually installed VMware Tools (13.0.10) from the menu option to Install VMware Tools (mount the DVD drive and run the installer). It launched and installed without throwing any errors and the various drivers took effect accordingly (i.e., restored display resolution).

I rebooted Windows, then one more log out and log in to finalise the VMware Tools installation.

All seems well.

The short of it is if I was doing this over I would cancel the automatic VMware Tools install. Something about that update process was seemingly incompatible with the existing VMware Tools installation, at least on my system configuration.

FYI.

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[Macatak]

In case anyone needs them, the VMware Tools repository is here:

https://packages.vmware.com/tools/releases/

In updating my reference VMs of older Windows and macOS versions, the tools are no longer packaged in the Fusion app and must be downloaded separately. One of the links it suggests returns "file not found" (one for x86).

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[Technogeezer]

I'd recommend using this link to find versions of VMware Tools:  https://packages-prod.broadcom.com/tools/

Even though the link that@Macatak posted currently redirects here, I wouldn't bet that Broadcom will maintain that redirect of a former VMware URL forever. 

Using the link I posted will show 2 sub folders of interest:

• releases - contains versions of VMware Tools organized by version number. The versions you'll find here should match up with the versions that Broadcom has on their free software downloads in the suppprt portal. 
• frozen - contains VMware tools packages that have been deprecated such as Windows versions prior to Windows 7, Linux, and macOS. In most cases, these packages can not be found in the releases folder since the Tools versions that last contained them is no longer offered. 

if looking for VMware Tools for platforms considered legacy or deprecated, you may want to start with the frozen folder. 

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Paul Rockwell (technogeezer)
vExpert 2026 (3x)
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[Macatak]

Thank you @Technogeezer for that link update.

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[Technogeezer]

I made a typo in my previous post (wrong folder name for the  frozen VMware Tools). It has been corrected. 

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Paul Rockwell (technogeezer)
vExpert 2026 (3x)
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