The VMware VI Client - Why is it Windows only?

Have you ever wondered why VMware’s VI client is Windows only? The most obvious reason is that it is written in C# using the .NET framework. However, the client could easily be written in Python or Java or some other OS agnostic language. So why Windows only? There are in fact two reasons the VI client is Windows only, let’s take a look at them.

“I’ll be your Huckleberry”

VMware apparently uses a C library called “TomSawyer” to handle the task of graphing performance output. Digging into a disassembled VI client, you can see where the Interop assembly is used and what it is used for. Using the Microsoft OLE/COM viewer to peer directly into TomSawyer’s library certain functions and strings like “GridColumnObject” and “TSEFlowChartType” give away the library’s purpose. I cannot think of a reason to marshal a library that graphs datasets unless VMware thought .NET was not up to the task of plotting data. However, the performance graphs displayed in a VI client take so long to initialize anyway that I do not think anyone one have noticed. As Barney on HIMYM says, “JIT up!”

QuickMKS

Sorry, I did not have a witty title for this section The other reason that the VI client is Windows only appears to be the library that it uses for the console view. The MKS (mouse, keyboard, sound) library is what the VI client marshals when it creates the console connection directly to the VM. Notice the absence of a V? I do too. Although the library’s name does not explicitly state that it is responsible for video, the functions inside of it, FullScreen, SetFullScreen, SetGuestSize, etc., seem to indicate that it *is* the responsible library.

Anything else?

TomSawyer can certainly be ported to run natively in .NET or another language (it does already in fact have a Java version), but QuickMKS may be a bit more difficult. It almost certainly relies on native OS calls that are most likely quite difficult to get working on other systems. However, if VMware would be so kind to send the source code my way, I’d sure like to try!