Mapping VMware Updates and Tools to Build Numbers

VMware has always branded its software as GA, Update 1, Express Patch 4, etc etc. This makes it easy to discuss features and fixes among employees and customers alike. The challenge, as many of you know, is knowing the exact build numbers that correlate to these upgrades and patches. Those specific build numbers are often requested by TAMs, Support, and Engineering in order to ensure accurate recommendations when upgrade planning or troubleshooting.

Another challenge is knowing where in the stack of released versions you line up. If you're on vSphere 6.5.0b Patch 1, is that before or after Express Patch 1b? When did Update 1 come out again?

Luckily, VMware has made it easy for you to track down these build numbers, and know where you are in the greater timeline of releases. VMware Knowledge Base Article 1014508 is a hub of build numbers for most VMware products. Be sure to bookmark this page!

Table from KB1014508

You may notice a key component missing from this table, and that would be VMware Tools, VMware's guest operating system management and performance solution. VMware Tools can throw in some complexity since there are versions that come bundled with ESXi hosts, and there are separate build numbers for how ESXi sees it, vs how the Guest OS sees it. This can be overly complicated in mapping out. Here's the second page to bookmark:

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

Notice the 4 columns of information. As the page states, the columns represent the Tools Client registered build, the source ESXi build bundle, the GOS identified build, and the ESXi server build number. All in a public setting that easy to consume and report on.

Thanks for reading!

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Horizon Collector for Mac now on VMware Flings

I'm happy to announce that my little project to automate collecting Horizon View Client logs for Mac OS X has been published to VMware Flings!

Why Horizon Collector for Mac?

Currently, the Horizon Client for Windows has a built-in log collection feature. Even the Linux Client has a script that's provided by VMware to collect the necessary files. There is, however, no automated process provided by VMware to collect client logs for Mac OS X, leaving admins and end-users on their own to navigate through system files and manually set log collection levels and manually upload to support.

Here is what Horizon Collector does

• Automates collection of Horizon Client Application logs, as well as PCoIP, RTAV, USB, and Printing logs


• Easily enables full DEBUG logging if requested by Admins or VMware Support (and turns DEBUG off when you're done)


• Puts complete log bundle in a single .zip on your desktop


• Automates FTP upload to VMware Support (if applicable)

You can download the tool over at VMware Flings.

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