[Free Tools]: VMware Logon Monitor

by Davoud Teimouri · Published 22/06/2018 · Updated 04/04/2019

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What’s VMware Logon Monitor

VMware Logon Monitor monitors Windows user logons and reports a wide variety of performance metrics intended to help administrators, support staff, and developers troubleshoot slow logon performance. Metrics include, but are not limited to, logon time, CPU/memory usage, and network connection speed. VMware Logon Monitor also receives metrics from other VMware products which provide even more clues about what is happening during the logon flow.

While other VMware products are not required to benefit from VMware Logon Monitor, some VMware products may be active during user logon. The Horizon Agent, Horizon Persona Management, and App Volumes are examples and will soon report additional metrics which may further enhance the value of VMware Logon Monitor’s logs.

The tool is available on this link: https://labs.vmware.com/flings/vmware-logon-monitor

System Requirements

VMware Logon Monitor is compatible with:

Windows 7 (x86 / x64)
Windows 10 (x86 / x64)

How It Works?

VMware Logon Monitor writes two different log files, one for service status messages and one per user session. By default, all log files are written to C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware Logon Monitor\Logs:

Main Log: The main log file, vmlm.txt, contains all status messages for the vmlm service and session events that come in before and after we monitor the logon. Check this log to determine if the VMware Logon Monitor is running correctly.
Session Log: The session log, vmlm_logon.txt, contains all events related to a user logon session. Events start in this log when the logon begins and only apply to a single user session. Look at this log to troubleshoot slow logons. A summary of the most important metrics is written at the end of this log. Check the summary for an overview of the logon and the rest of the log for more details. When the logon is complete, no further events are written to the session log.
Historical Logs: VMware Logon Monitor keeps up to 10 historical session logs. This is configurable, but the minimum is 1 and maximum is 10.
Historical logs use the following naming convention: vmlm__<computer_name>_<date>_<time>.txt.
Remote Logs: If a remote log path is configured, the historical session log is copied to the remote log path when the logon is complete.
Remote logs use the following naming convention: <Computer_Name>_<username>_SessionId_<date>_<time>.txt