Installation guide

Changes to the Upgrade Process 1
VMware vSphere introduces many changes to the upgrade process for vCenter Server and ESX/ESXi.
This chapter includes the following topics:
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“vCenter Server Upgrade,” on page 11
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“Host Upgrade,” on page 11
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“Datastore Upgrade,” on page 12
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“Virtual Machine Upgrade,” on page 12
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“Licensing,” on page 13
vCenter Server Upgrade
The process of upgrading VirtualCenter includes several changes from the upgrade process in previous
releases.
When you upgrade from VirtualCenter 2.x to vCenter Server 4.0, consider the following:
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The unified installer is no longer supported.
The autorun.exe executable file provides an HTML interface that presents the following installers:
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vCenter Server
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vCenter Guided Consolidation
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vSphere Client
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vCenter Update Manager
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vCenter Converter
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The database schema upgrade occurs before the upgrade to vCenter Server. This ensures that your existing
version of VirtualCenter 2.x remains in place until the database schema upgrade completes successfully.
When the database schema upgrade is successful, the upgrade to vCenter Server begins.
Host Upgrade
The process of upgrading ESX/ESXi hosts includes several changes from the upgrade process in previous
releases.
When you upgrade from ESX 3.x/ESXi 3.5 to ESX 4.0/ESXi 4.0, you can use either the vSphere Host Update
Utility or vCenter Update Manager.
VMware, Inc.
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