Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
3.
Right-click the Standard VGA Graphics Adapter or VMware SVGA II item, and select
Update Driver Software.
4.
Click Browse My Computer For Driver Software.
5.
Using the Browse button, navigate to
C:\Program Files\Common Files\VMware\Drivers\wddm_video
and then click Next.
6.
After a moment, Windows will report that it has successfully installed the driver for the
VMware SVGA 3D (Microsoft Corporation - WDDM) device. Click Close.
7.
Restart the VM when prompted.
After Windows restarts in the VM, you should notice improved performance when using the
graphical console. Note that this procedure is no longer required in Windows Server 2012. The
VMware SVGA 3D driver is automatically installed along with the VMware Tools installation.
For older versions of Windows, such as Windows Server 2003, you can improve the respon-
siveness of the VM console by coni guring the hardware acceleration setting. It is, by default, set
to None; setting this to Maximum provides a much smoother console session experience. The
VMware Tools installation routine reminds you to set this value at the end of the installation,
but if you choose not to set hardware acceleration at that time, it can easily be set later. This is
highly recommended to optimize the graphical performance of the VM's console. (Note that
Windows XP has this value set to Maximum by default.)
Perform the following steps to adjust the hardware acceleration in a VM running Windows
Server 2003 (or Windows XP, in case the value has been changed from the default):
1.
Right-click an empty area of the Windows Desktop, and select the Properties option.
2.
Select the Settings tab, and click the Advanced button.
3.
Select the Troubleshooting tab.
4.
Move the Hardware Acceleration slider to the Full setting on the right, as shown in
Figure 9.19.
Now that the VMware Tools installation is complete and the VM is rebooted, the system tray
displays the VMware Tools icon, the letters
VM
in a small gray box (Windows Taskbar settings
might hide the icon). The icon in the system tray indicates that VMware Tools is installed and
operational.
In previous versions of vSphere, double-clicking the VMware Tools icon in the system tray
would bring up a set of coni gurable options. As of vSphere 5.1, that interface has been removed
and replaced with the informational screen shown in Figure 9.20. Previously you could coni g-
ure time synchronization, show or hide VMware Tools from the Taskbar, and select scripts to
suspend, resume, shut down, or turn on a VM.
VMware now provides a command-line-based tool, called VMwareToolboxCmd.exe, that will
allow you to coni gure these settings. You can access VMwareToolboxCmd.exe by launching a
command prompt and browsing to the installation directory of VMware Tools.
As with previous versions of VMware Tools, time synchronization between the guest OS and
the host is disabled by default. You'll want to use caution when enabling time synchronization
