Free Tools

On this page, you’ll find ESXi Monitoring tools as well as Free Tools for VMware, Microsoft. This is one of the best selections of Free Tools for VMware and Microsoft. Monitoring tools for virtual infrastructure, but also backup products. All products here are free because usually, you can upgrade to paid product to get even more functions. Free VMware Monitoring Tools are the essentials that VMware admins can use and implement when managing virtual infrastructures running VMware or Microsoft Hyper-V. Many of them have been awarded during VMworlds.

There are also other tools which are useful for IT admins and technicians. Those are more specific tools for troubleshooting Windows, Partitioning tools, Microsoft Active directory, SQL, Exchange and other enterprise class apps… There is no particular order… -:

Veeam Backup Full Edition v9.5 (Trial):  play with full version during 30 days. After 30 days it transforms itself into a free version…  which can do full backups of single VM at a time of  VMware ESX/ESXi environment.

Veeam ONE Free = Veeam Reporter + Veeam Monitor + Veeam Business View.  Full data collection, multi-user support, and Microsoft SQL Server backend. There are no limits on the number of hosts, virtual machines (VMs), users or the size of your archive — you can discover, document and analyze your entire virtual infrastructure, and maintain a complete history of all objects, settings, and changes.

Nakivo Backup and Replication – Quite new company, but already version 6 of their product! They also have a completely free version or if you are VMUG member, VMware vExpert, VCP, VSP, VTSP, or VCI you can receive a FREE two-socket Not For Resale (NFR) license of NAKIVO Backup & Replication for your home or work lab.



HPE VM Explorer: VM Explorer is a backup tool and replication tool. The free version has limited functions (can only do full backups, and other limits), but I like the easy to use and install. My latest post her What’s new in HPE VM Explorer 6.0? vSphere 6.5 support – Added support for ESXi 6.5 which allows adding vCenter server v 6.5 and the underlying hosts/clusters, into the management UI. Exchange 2013/2016 recovery – Added Exchange 2013 and Exchange 2016 e-mail recover. Email exchange stays crucial at the enterprise. The necessity to recover individual emails instead the whole mailbox is usually the decision point when seeking for backup/recovery solution for MS Exchange.

Altaro VM backup – Free for 2 VMs. Forever. Check it out! The free version can backup just 2 VMs per host. All interesting features are in the more advanced, Unlimited edition. But you can start with the free one. The Free edition does not provide offsite backups, file level restores or a possibility to restore on a different host either. Check the edition compare and pricing here.

Free SoftEther VPN Server – The product consists of several modules (server, client, bridge) and is available for Windows (including ARM machines), Linux and MacOS, or Android/iPAD. I’m usually not a much into a VPN software solutions, but this one seems to be quite different. It’s built by Japanese university of Tsukuba and covers multiple use cases and has some built-in utilities for Dynamic DNS (no need for external IP being Fixed IP) and free Microsoft Azure VPN.

• Free OpenSource Software
• Resistance to highly-restricted firewalls.
• Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, iPhone, iPad and Windows Mobile
• SSL-VPN (HTTPS) and 6 major VPN protocols (OpenVPN, IPsec, L2TP, MS-SSTP, L2TPv3 and EtherIP) are all supported as VPN tunneling underlay protocols.

Snapwatcher for VMware – snapshot detection for VMware infrastructure. Can detect invalid, broken snapshots. Easy to install the app. I have reviewed the enterprise version which can also fix and delete broken snapshots from within the console. It’s possible to hook several vCenter servers and have the whole environment being monitored.  Download from Opvizor.

• Monitor snapshots across VMware infrastructure – can connect to multiple vCenters at a time to give you an overview of snapshots usage, size, history
• Gain precious space on your storage systems – Provides Top 5 by size, to find the most space taking snapshots from within your infrastructure.
• Fixing Broken Snapshots – deletes a broken, old and invalid snapshots with a single click to gain space.
• Delete VM Snapshots within the main console – several vCenter servers or individual ESXi hosts can be managed with single pane of glass

ESXi Free Web Client Interface – New free tool (fling) from VMware labs now allows to manage ESXi host via web client without the need of a vCenter server. ESXi Free Web client interface (HTML 5 based) allows managing a host without the need of the legacy C++ Windows client. The utility is bundled as a vib and can be installed on ESXi host via SSH (via Putty for example) without the need to reboot the host.

The ESXi Embedded Host Client page at VMware Labs.

PoshPAIG – free utility called PoshPAIG (PowerShell Audit Installation GUI) is developed and maintained by Boe Prox at learn-powershell.net. Download from the product page. The tool allows you to Audit installed patches, Install patches remotely. The possibility to export the results to CSV files is also included.

This very interesting feature for doing PowerShell Audit and Patch Installation on windows server systems, where you need to gather a list of patches deployed etc. You can also remote – reboot the managed servers. Read my article on how to install and use this tool here.

Veeam Endpoint Backup – destined for physical PCs/ laptops. Can do a volume or file level backups. The restore of Full PC/ laptop or individual files is possible.  The product is free and will stay free. Recently updated to support Windows 10, the version 1.1 also adds resizing of partition when restoring option and Universal restore (to dissimilar hardware) options enhancements.  The 1.5 version adds e-mail reports or possibility to eject the USB disk after backup – additional protection against Ransomware! Veeam Endpoint Backup is destined to protect physical computers/laptops by creating image level backups (note: can also do file level backup but is slower) where the 1st backup is Full and the next backups are incremental.

Veeam FastSCP for Microsoft Azure – Veeam FastSCP for Microsoft Azure is meant to be used by developers willing to copy a file to and from VMs running in Microsoft Azure. So you can copy files to and from the inside of a VM, which is normally not so fast, and it’s painful if, for example, you do it through RDP.

It’s standalone and Free tool from Veeam. No integration with other software products from Veeam.

Extrasphere App – Migration of VMDKs, VMs between hosts without vCenter (even with Free ESXi Hypervisor)

• VM disks migration to another datastore located on the same host (NO downtime). Basically, a storage vmotion, without vCenter, without svmotion license…
• VM migration to another standalone host using shared storage (NFS) – suspend/resume used
• VM migration changing both host and datastore – suspend/resume used

Get the App from Extrasphere.ru website.

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Lightweight VMs for Home lab and Nested lab

MicroCore Linux (with open-source VMware Tools) – source: Mike Laverick’s blog. The author is Doug Baer who put it together.

Size: 64MB RAM/SCSI HD (LSI Logic) 1GB (Thinly Provisioned)
Root Account Password: root
SSH account: VMware1!
SSH password: VMware1!

MicroCore Linux – in OVA Format

vCenter Certificate Automation Tool 1.0.1 (For vSphere 5.x)

command line tool called vCenter Certificate Automation Tool 1.0.1 which enables you to automate the deployment of certificates for different vCenter components like SSO, vCenter, View Connection server etc… The tool does provide automation of deployment but does not manage the actual generation of SSL certificates, which needs to be done through other methods. It does not deploy certificates for using in ESXi hosts, the tool manages (deploy, replace) certificates in vCenter components only. Download the SSL Certificate Automation Tool.

Other Links: Generating certificates for use with the VMware SSL Certificate Automation Tool and Deploying and using the SSL Certificate Automation Tool.

Easily deploy by selecting the components that need digital certificates replaced. This Fling works with vCenter Server Appliance 5.5 only. In version 6.0 of vSphere the certificates are managed through vSphere Web client.

VMware OS Optimization tool – The tool has been newly updated. It’s fast utility which can optimize different settings which slowing down the VDI desktops when using default settings only. Many services, registry settings, scheduled tasks etc….

The latest release has updated templates for Windows 7/8/10/Server 20089-2012 – based on VMware’s OS Optimization Guide, New templates for Windows 2008/2012 RDSH servers for use as a desktop, Single portal EXE design for ease of deployment and distribution, Combination of Remote and Local tools into one tool, Better template management, with built-in and user-definable templates, Results report export feature. Various bug fixes, usability enhancements, and GUI layout updates. Get your copy of VMware Os Optimization utility here.

 

vCenter Support Assistant – free download from VMware product page here. Not only you can use this product to create and fill support requests, but also to generate and collect logs with direct upload capability. vCenter support assistant 5.1 is available is a virtual appliance, which gets deployed from OVF file.  Two types of support requests are available through the product:

• Support requests
• Feature requests (for products you have entitlements)

For Desktops or VDI:

Free Backup Tool for Desktop OS –  One Click Restore software from Keriver is able to do a full, incremental or differential images of the underlying OS. If you look for a tool which does provide some kind of central management console, this is not the tool you should be looking for. It’s a rather simple tool for few individual desktops. In the past, I’ve been using the well-known names like Norton Ghost or Acronis, which are a long time being on the market, but today I stumbled through this too and I thought that it’s worth sharing…

VDI calculator – VDI calculator allows is used for VDI projects for sizing and calculating VDI environments. This tool which was previously Flash-based online tool can be now executed offline, without an internet connection. Provided as a free tool online, by Andre Leibovici  – www.myvirtualcloud.net . It helps to do calculations concerning the sizing of your VMware View Infrastructure.  The VDI calculator is targeted for VMware View designs, however, you can use the tool for any VDI running on top of the vSphere infrastructure. The latest update includes the metrics for VMware Storage Accelerator – Content Read Based Cache (CRBC).

Starwind

Starwind Virtual SAN – Free version (limited to 2 hosts). The free version of Starwind Virtual SAN offers some good possibilities: Data Deduplication, Unlimited storage capacity & an unlimited number of supported concurrent iSCSI connections. Full Production use is allowed. Caching –  a multi-level cache mechanism can use gigabytes of RAM and converts it into extremely fast level 1 write-back or write-through cache. Continuous Data Protection and Snapshots that are completely compatible with VSS (Volume Snapshot Services).  iSCSI boot is fully supported with iSCSI boot capable NIC.  Download your copy of Starwind Virtual SAN.

PowerShell Plus 4.7 – professional tool from Idera. There is a free tool from Idera which has appeared recently on my radar, and even if I’m not a PowerShell guru, this tool might make me “like” the PowerShell thingy a bit more than usually. Download Free PowerShell Plus 4.7 here.

Microsoft

It’s fairly difficult to get SQL Express with or without the management studio, with 3 different versions (2008, 2012 and 2014..). I gathered the links to this 6 direct downloads links (x64 bit versions only!!)

SQL Server (Express version) with or without Management Studio –  direct Download links: 

• 2008R2 SP2 – SQLExpress 2008 with management studio or Management studio only.
• 2012 – SQLExpress 2012 with management studio or Management studio only.
• 2014 – SQLExpress 2014 with management studio or Management studio only.
• 2016 – SQL Express 2016  Download 

Uninstall Office 2016, Office 2013, or Office 365 Using the Easy Fix Tool

The tool is in CAB format and you can use this fix from Microsoft to uninstall Office from a central location on a single PC or multiple PCs at once. Download here 

WSUS Offline Update Free Utility

Allows “Offline” patching of Windows systems. Client and server OS are supported. There is also patches for Microsft Office and in different languages.

• Client OS – Windows 7, 8, 10 patches
• Server OS – Windows Server 2008 R2, 2012, 2012R2 or 2016 patches
• Office – where there are 2010, 2013, 2016 with different languages
• Legacy products  – Vista, Server 2008, Office 2007
• Options to verify downloaded Updates
• C++ Runtime libraries and .NET
• Microsoft Security Essentials
• Windows Defender definitions
• Create ISO (or USB) image – per selected product and language OR per selected language
• Copy to directory – this option allows you to copy the patches elsewhere.
• Option to specify your local WSUS server is handy too where you can save your time and just “collect” what you need from your WSUS server running on your LAN.

Windows Management Framework 5.0

Has updates to Windows PowerShell, Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC), Windows Remote Management (WinRM), Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI).

1. Download the correct package for your operating system and architecture from this page at Microsoft. The following architectures are supported.
   • Windows Server 2012 R2
     • x64: W2K12R2-KB3094174-x64.msu
   • Windows Server 2012
     • x64: W2K12-KB3094175-x64.msu
   • Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
     • x64: W2K8R2-KB3094176-x64.msu
   • Windows 8.1
     • x64: W2K12R2-KB3094174-x64.msu
     • x86: Win8.1-KB3094174-x86.msu
   • Windows 7 SP1
     • x64: W2K8R2-KB3094176-x64.msu
     • x86: Win7-KB3094176-x86.msu
2. Close all Windows PowerShell windows.

 

1. Instructions specific to Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
   • Ensure following prerequisites have been met:
     • Latest service pack is installed.
     • WMF 4.0 is installed.
   • WinRM Dependency:
     • Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC) depends on WinRM. WinRM is not enabled by default on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. To enable WinRM, in a Windows PowerShell elevated session, run Set-WSManQuickConfig.

Core Configurator 2.0 – free config tool for Windows Server 2008R2 Core – works with Windows Server 2008R2 x64 core only.  The tool is provided as an ISO, so to run the Core Configurator 2.0 just mount the ISO and  run Start_CoreConfig.wsf. Here is the link to the developper’s page: https://coreconfig.codeplex.com/

VMware

vCenter Pre-Upgrade Checker – The VMware vCenter Pre-Upgrade Checker not only detects problems, but also miss-configuration and can avoid performance problems after the upgrade. The tool produces as an output single zip file. Inside of this zip file there is the database signature file and also the message log from running the upgrade checker tool.

AOMEI PE Builder – Supported on Windows 7/8 based systems (x32 or x64) but also on Windows Server 2008/2012 based systems. The server platform support is good thing in case that you’re system administrator and maintaining physical server boxes.

It allows creating Win PE bootable environment without installing Microsoft WAIK. The tool has also some built-in tools and additionally you can add your own utilities very easy which gets exported in the final ISO.

Note:  You can install it only on Win 7/8 (not 8.1) or server 2008/2012 (not R2). But once created you can use it to boot systems from windows XP/2000/Vista/7/8/8.1 and Server 2000/2003/12008/2012…. Product page.

PuTTyTray – It’s a free tool which can be personalized and which is cool. One of the personalization possibilities is, as you can imagine and according to its name, to have it running in Windows tray with eventually an option to open the window on simple click. The personalizations can be done via Right clicking the app > Change settings.

PuTTyTray Features:

• Minimizing to the system tray (on CTRL + minimize, always or directly on startup)
• Icons are customizable
• Blinks tray icon when a bell signal is received
• Configurable window transparency
• URL hyperlinking
• Portability: optionally stores session configuration in files (for example: on a USB drive) like portaPuTTY
• Easy access to the ‘always on top’ setting (in the system menu)
• Android adb support

Setting up appearance or hyperlinks. Source Website: PuttyTray

Remote Utilities – remote control over the remote system over LAN or WAN (passes through the router, like Teamviewer or Anydesk).

• Security – IP filtering allowing to restrict access to only certain IP addresses. Whitelist the ones you need, or blacklist the ones you don’t…
  • protection settings – remote users can’t change the settings on their machines
• Attended access – remote support via the agent module. No installation is necessary in this case.
• One to Many – connection to multiple machines at the same time from single machine
• AD support –  PCs attached to Microsoft domain appears automatically in the directory tree when preinstalled with the software. (cool…)
• Adress book sync – can sync with other technician’s machines which providing the support for your company. The address book is also backed up every day.
• iOS and Android support – you can use android or iOS devices to manage the network
• Remote settings – you can change the settings for the remote machine from the main console
• File Transfer – you can transfer files to and from.

YUMI – Yumi provides you with a list of pre-programmed Linux Distributions and Utilities that are available for multi-boot USB creation. You can choose any of those tools from a drop down menu. A second step is to point to the ISO file so YUMI can extract the necessary files and copy them to the particular folder on the USB stick. YUMI has almost all distros of Linux but also antivirus, system tools and other utilities which can’t be put into a particular category but shall be on every administrator’s USB stick toolbox. Download YUMI.

V-Front Online Depot for ESXi software – Provided by Andreas Peetz from v-front.de . Allows to use PowerCLI or VUM to install Add-ons and patches to your ESXi hosts. https://www.v-front.de/2013/12/announcing-v-front-online-depot-for.html

 

VMware Converter Standalone  – This is a free tool from VMware that everybody knows. Use a converter to do P2V conversions, adjust Virtual disk size during V2V conversions, change from Thick to thin.

If you have many VMs to convert, want to speed up the conversions by disabling SSL via script.From v. 5.0 of Converter, there is the possibility of alignment of converted VMs on a destination datastore. Converter 6.1.1 supports conversion from Hyper-V v3 VMs (powered off) and also Windows 10 systems.
You can gain up to 30% in performance.  It can be used as “Poor man’s DR solution“. It’s the same version which is bundled with vSphere Essentials, Essentials Plus or higher versions of VMware vSphere. In case you need the Cold clone ISO – you can get it from my Dropbox Folder.

VMware Player – VMware Player is great for doing some demos or testing. It lacks a lot of features from VMware Workstation like snapshots, connection to the vSphere infrastructure and many others,  but I like to use it because it’s very lightweight and handy and the recent features like unity are really great… You can have your VM in the background and the windows and programs executing inside this VM are “in front”. The unity mode is just signaled by a red icon on the window. You will not see the VM player windows floating on your desktop, but the applications.

RVTools – Quick inventory can be done with this free tool from Rob de Veij. It’s a small MSI package which after installation can list information about cpu, memory, disks, NICs, cd-ROM, floppy drives, snapshots, VMware tools, ESXi hosts, and datastores.  Download RV Tools from here. The latest version is 3.8 and it’s been released recently. Pretty useful to quickly gather different information about your infrastructure.

vSphere Mini Monitor – free monitoring tool for VI running under vSphere. If you’re more than one administrator of your vCenter, with this tools you can see what the others are doing. It does monitor a large number of changes to multiple objects within the vCenter environment.

Putty is used for remote SSH to the VMware ESX service console and Linux servers or desktops. Putty is one of the “classic tools”. Everybody knows putty…. there is also putty portable you can carry around on your USB stick. You can download Putty Here and Putty portable here.

svfAlarms –  By chance, I stumbled through this free GUI utility called svfAlarms, which enables you to import and export vCenter Alarms. There are some 37 default alarms in vCenter 4, 55 default alarms in vCenter5 and 61 default alarms in vCenter5.1 Alarm definitions can be fairly complex and to manage and document alarms, duplicate them across multiple vCenter installations and also to keep a managed state can be time-consuming for administrators. The sfvAlarms utility can help simplify the alarm management task. Download the utility.

ESXi-Customizer – user-friendly GUI tool from Andreas Peetz, that automates the process of customizing the ESXi install-ISO with drivers that are not originally included. Unlike other scripts and manuals that are available for this purpose ESXi Customizer runs entirely on Windows and does not require any knowledge of or access to Linux. download the tool.

Find inactive computer accounts in Active Directory – AD Tidy Tool – After running a reporting tool which brings results, you can select the desired records and do some actions, like disabling, moving, adding/removing to/from groups etc. You can also set expiration data on objects.

The tool uses powerful filtering options and can do a lot of actions. You can also build your own action sequences or export pie charts. The creator of this tool is Chris Wright from the UK.

GParted Live ISO –  I’m sure that everyone knows this tool. But still, I want to share me recent experience. You know that with the new hosts I got for my lab there is the Supermicro’s iPMI remote management, and I found myself too lazy after all. All you need to do to attach a GParted Live ISO, then boot the system on it and then do what you have to do. No need to burn the iso or to create a bootable USB stick.

The GParted Live ISO can directly attach to the system, you boot on it and it can be used to format or create partitions on local disks. Check their website at www.gparted.org

VMware Goodies !

VMware Network port diagram – get it from this page.

vSphere 6.0 ESXTOP poster quick overview for troubleshooting.

Andreas Lesslhumer over at www.running-system.com has an updated version of his vSphere 5.5 ESXTOP quick reference PDF poster.

I blogged about the poster in my article when it first came out, and now it’s been updated for ESXi 6.0. Get your copy.

VMware vSphere 6 Memory Management and Monitoring diagram explain not only the four principal memory management techniques that vSphere 6 uses.

I’m sure that you have already seen the diagrams like those and I’m sure that you recognize the author – Hany Michael who works for VMware -:).

Get your copy.