Installation guide

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VMware ESX Server Administration Guide

Migrating Older ESX Server Virtual Machines

You can use virtual machines created with versions of ESX Server older than 2.1.

Virtual machines created in ESX Server 1.5 can work as is; however, to take advantage

of the new features of ESX Server 2.0, there are steps you need to take to upgrade your

virtual machines.

If you created the virtual machine under ESX Server 1.5 and do not want to upgrade

the virtual machine, you can run it in legacy mode. See Running ESX Server 1.5 Virtual

Machines in Legacy Mode below.

Note: Virtual machines created under ESX Server 1.0 or ESX Server 1.1 must be

upgraded to ESX Server 1.5 before they can be migrated to ESX Server 2.1. Once these

virtual machines run under ESX Server 1.5, you can migrate them to ESX Server 2.1.

See the upgrade instructions at www.vmware.com/support/esx15/doc/install_esx.html.

First, you need to upgrade the virtual machine’s hardware. This must be done for any

virtual machine created under ESX Server 1.0, 1.1 or 1.5. To upgrade the virtual

machine’s hardware, make sure the virtual machine is powered off. On the Status

Monitor page in the management interface, click the arrow to the right of the

terminal icon ( ) and choose Configure Hardware. On the Hardware tab, click

Upgrade Virtual Hardware, then click OK to upgrade the hardware.

Then, assign disk bandwidth shares to the virtual machine. For more information, see

See Managing Disk Bandwidth from the Management Interface on page 433.

Upgrading Windows Server 2003 Guest Operating Systems Created by ESX

Server 1.5.2

If you used ESX Server 1.5.2 to create a virtual machine with a Windows Server 2003

guest operating system, then you must update the guestOS configuration

parameter in the virtual machine's configuration file. Otherwise, this virtual machine

will not run properly with ESX Server 2.1.

Complete the following steps to update the guestOS configuration parameter:

1. Log into the VMware Management Interface as the owner of the virtual

machine, or as the root user.

2. Click the arrow to the right of the terminal icon for the Windows Server 2003

virtual machine and choose Configure Options.

3. Click the Options tab, then under Verbose Options, click the link.

4. Change the value of the guestOS configuration parameter to one of the

following:

• winNetWeb (Windows Server 2003 Web Edition)