6.0.1

Table Of Contents
Upgrading Virtual Machines 12
After you perform an ESX/ESXi upgrade, you can upgrade all of the virtual machines that reside on the host
to take advantage of new features.
To determine whether your virtual machines are compatible with the new version of ESXi, see “Virtual
Machine Compatibility,” on page 89. For a list of hardware features available to virtual machines with each
ESXi compatibility setting, see “Hardware Features Available with Virtual Machine Compatibility Settings,”
on page 93.
The first step in upgrading virtual machines is to upgrade VMware Tools. If the virtual machines do not
have VMware Tools installed, you can use the VMware Tools upgrade procedure to install VMware Tools.
After you install or upgrade VMware Tools, upgrade the virtual machine compatibility.
NOTE Do not use vmware-vmupgrade.exe to upgrade virtual machines.
VMware offers the following tools for upgrading virtual machines:
vSphere Web Client
Requires you to perform the virtual machine upgrade one step at a time, but
does not require vSphere Update Manager.
vSphere Update
Manager
Automates the process of upgrading and patching virtual machines,
ensuring that the steps occur in the correct order. You can use Update
Manager to directly upgrade virtual machine hardware, VMware Tools, and
virtual appliances. You can also patch and update third-party software
running on the virtual machines and virtual appliances. See the Installing and
Administering VMware vSphere Update Manager documentation.
This chapter includes the following topics:
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“Upgrading VMware Tools,” on page 226
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“Installing VMware Tools,” on page 227
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“Planning Downtime for Virtual Machines,” on page 229
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“Downtime for Upgrading Virtual Machines,” on page 229
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“Manually Install or Upgrade VMware Tools in a Windows Virtual Machine,” on page 230
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“Automate VMware Tools Installation for Multiple Windows Virtual Machines,” on page 232
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“Manually Install or Upgrade VMware Tools in a Linux Virtual Machine,” on page 236
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“Operating System Specific Packages for Linux Guest Operating Systems,” on page 238
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“Manually Install or Upgrade VMware Tools in a Mac OS X Virtual Machine,” on page 239
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“Manually Install or Upgrade VMware Tools in a Solaris Virtual Machine,” on page 240
VMware, Inc.
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