If you have been using vSphere for any length of time, you have already come to know what a God-send and how essential VMware Tools is. For the majority of admins, being able to install VMware Tools using the Thick client drop-down and now from the web-client, is sufficient. However, there are times that you may want to have this scripted. To do a silent install of VMware Tools on a Windows VM you can do the following:
- Copy the VMware Tools Installer to a local or shared folder
- Note: There are 2 different installers: Setup.exe and Setup64.exe Choose according to the corresponding OS
- Open Command Prompt
- Browse to the folder that includes the setup file
- type .\setup64.exe /s /v “/qn reboot=r”
The /qn means it will be a silent (quiet) installation, there will be no GUI.
reboot=r will keep your VM from restarting after the installation completes
s – silent execution
v – sends all parameters directly to the msi file.
Taken from https://www.brianjgraf.com/2013/12/07/silent-install-vmware-tools-command-line/