I had some trouble with VMwaretools stopping on some machines and decided to automate restart och vmware tools. I wrote this script which takes a view parameter to view current status. If you start the script whitout the view parameter it will try to restart vmware tools.

fix-toolsnorunning.ps1

param
(
[parameter(Mandatory = $false)]
[switch]
$view
)

#Connect to Vcenter
$cred = Get-Credential
Connect-VIServer vcenter -Credential $cred | Out-Null

Write-Host -ForegroundColor Green "Collecting VMs"
$toolsvm=get-vm | where { $_.GuestId -like "*Windows*" -and $_.Extensiondata.Summary.Guest.ToolsStatus -like "toolsnotrunning" -and $_.Powerstate -eq "PoweredOn"}

#Stop script if no VMs reports tools not running
if ($toolsvm -eq $null)
{
Write-Host "Nothing to fix"
Disconnect-VIServer vcenter -Confirm:$false
exit
}

if ($view)
{
Write-Host "VMs whitout tools running"
foreach ($vm in $toolsvm)
{
Write-Host $vm
}
}
Else
{

foreach ($vm in $toolsvm)
{

if ($vm -match "^(?<Name>\S*)\s.*$") { $vm_name = $Matches.Name }
else { $vm_name = $vm }

$vm_hostname = $vm_name.name +".domain.local"

if (Test-Connection -Computername $vm_hostname -BufferSize 16 -Count 1 -Quiet)
{
Invoke-Command -Computername $vm_hostname -ScriptBlock { stop-Service -name vmvss; start-service vmvss } -Credential $cred
Write-Host "Service restarted on $vm_name"
}
Else
{
Write-Host -ForegroundColor Red "Unable to contact $vm_name"
}

}
}
#Disconnect from Vcenter.
Disconnect-VIServer vcenter -Confirm:$false