Adding VSS and removing the Filesystem Sync driver when upgrading VMware Tools in a Windows virtual machine (1009886)

Purpose

VMware Consolidated Backup uses VSS for quiescing on ESX Server 3.5 Update 2 hosts when backing up Windows Server 2003, Vista, and Windows Server 2008 virtual machines.

 

If you uninstall and reinstall VMware Tools, the Filesystem Sync driver remains installed, which may cause an issue with snapshots. This article provides an automated method to add VSS and remove the Filesystem Sync driver when upgrading VMware Tools in Windows virtual machines.

Resolution

To add VSS and remove Filesystem Sync components during a VMware Tools upgrade:

• For ESX 3.5 Update 2 hosts, add this line in the Advanced Options of the Automatic Tools Upgrade:
  /s /v "FILEADDLOCAL=VCBRequestor.dll REMOVE=Sync /qb- REBOOT=R"
  
• For ESX 4.0 hosts, add this line in the Advanced Options of the Automatic Tools Upgrade:
  
  /s /v "FILEADDLOCAL=comreg.exe REMOVE=Sync /qb- REBOOT=R"
  
• For ESX  4.1 hosts, and ESXi 4.1 and 5.x hosts, Vmware tools for these versions no longer remove the sync driver
• Source
• http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1009886&src=vmw_so_vex_ragga_1012