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This page is dated. You can find the latest version here: Install VMware Guest Tools.

As of September 2015, VMware recommends using the distribution-specific open-vm-tools (OVT) instead of the VMware Tools package for guest machines (as in this guide).

The latest version of VMwareTools at this date does compiles against our kernel, albeit with several warnings. We utilise a set of VMwareTools patches to facilitate the installation.

First, we need to make sure to install any package and also make a local copy of the Git repository:

kali@kali:~$ sudo apt update
[...]
kali@kali:~$
kali@kali:~$ sudo apt install -y git gcc make linux-headers-$( uname -r )
[...]
kali@kali:~$
kali@kali:~$ sudo git clone https://github.com/rasa/vmware-tools-patches.git /opt/vmware-tools-patches/
[...]
kali@kali:~$

Next, mount the VMware tools ISO by clicking “Install VMware Tools” from the appropriate menu in VMware’s Window.

Once the VMware Tools ISO has been attached to the Virtual Machine, copy the installer to the downloads directory and then run the installer script from the Git repository:

kali@kali:~$ sudo mkdir -p /media/cdrom/
kali@kali:~$
kali@kali:~$ sudo mount /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom/
kali@kali:~$
kali@kali:~$ cp -f /media/cdrom/VMwareTools-*.tar.gz ~/downloads/
kali@kali:~$
kali@kali:~$ cd /opt/vmware-tools-patches/
kali@kali:/opt/vmware-tools-patches$ ./untar-and-patch-and-compile.sh
kali@kali:/opt/vmware-tools-patches$

Afterwards, reboot Kali Linux and when it starts back up, VMware Tools should be now functioning.