Source
r/vmware•
WinOSXBuntu

What are the services that VMware Tools installs in Windows? And what do they do?

As part of building my base images for Windows, I tend to go through the services and tweak different services, avoiding simply disabling services and opting to set them to Automatic (Delayed Start) or Manual if they have a valid trigger.

And one of the services I see listed once VMware Tools is installed is the VMware Alias Manager and Ticket Service and I have no idea what it does, or what any of the services barring the actual VMware Tools service.

If I stop the service, there is no discernable loss in functionality whereas if I stop the VMware Tools service then the loss in functionality is obvious, the VM resolution no longer changes, clipboard sync is lost and the Network Information in Workstation is no longer displayed.

So the TL;DR part of my post is, what do the VMware Alias Manager and Ticket Service, VMware CAF AMQP Communication Service, VMware CAF MAnagement Agent Service and VMware Snapshot Provider services do?

Oh and spare no technical details, I am the cat that will be killed. ;)

Posted Jul 7, 2018, 1:32 PM UTC

217
cr0ft•

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/340

6
Moocha•

That doesn't actually answer OP's question at all. It contains some high level overview of the functionality, but no actual technical details.

3
anomalous_cowherd•

I don't know either, but here's my best guesses...

The source for the Linux version of the VMware Alias Manager and Ticket Service (a.k.a. the VGAuth service) is at https://github.com/vmware/open-vm-tools/tree/master/open-vm-tools/vgauth.

Snapshot provider I would guess interfaces with the Windows VSS provider to make sure a Windows VSS 'freeze' is done before a VMware snapshot is taken.

CAF is VMware's 'common agent framework' which is used by agents running inside the guest but I can't see many details about it anywhere. AMQP is a messaging system so is probably used to pass messages between the various components and between the guest and the hypervisor.

5
Beards_Bears_BSG•

The snapshot service I believe is for quiescencing the guest OS.

I will start this however, your golden image of Windows should have as little on it as possible.

It should be clean barebones with any applications or configurations occuring with slipstreaming, application deployment tools or post deployment scripts.

4
CommonMisspellingBot•

Hey, Beards_Bears_BSG, just a quick heads-up:
occuring is actually spelled occurring. You can remember it by two cs, two rs.
Have a nice day!

^^^^The ^^^^parent ^^^^commenter ^^^^can ^^^^reply ^^^^with ^^^^'delete' ^^^^to ^^^^delete ^^^^this ^^^^comment.

-13
scottchamings•

Curious as well

1
straightdge•

In registry, you can find some details in:
HKLM/Software/VMware, Inc./VMware Drivers

It will tell you the drivers installed by VMware Tools.

1