ESXi 5.5 licensing

[aegyssus]

Hi,

I upgraded from ESXi 5.1 to 5.5 as, due to hardware limitations, I cannot go higher than ESXi 5.5.

Naturally, after the upgrade, I am prompted to provide a license key, and an ESXi 8 license is not accepted.

How can I get a license for this old version?

Many thanks.

[jonbeharry245]

If you were able to download an ESXi 5.5 installer from Customer Connect, do you also have licensing available here: https://customerconnect.vmware.com/license-management?

[michelkeus_stwg]

If you currently have ESXi 8 licenses and assuming you have proper SnS it is a multi-step downgrade of the license. Each downgrade "action" steps the version back by 1 major version (e.g 8 -> 7, 7 -> 6 and then 6 -> 5).

For reference see this KB article: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/81665#Downgrade 

[aegyssus]

I am afraid this only applies to subscriptions. I do not have any option to manage licenses on my free account.

I used to have a free license for v5.1. Once that the 60 day trial expires, I am not too sure what it going to happen...

I will be quite in limbo, I guess, as I won't be able to move back to v5.1 (it's been way too long since I've installed it) and I cannot get a key for ESXi 5.5.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

[michelkeus2]

If you have an existing license key for 5.1 then you should be OK. 5.5 does not require a new license.

You can see here for reference: Licensing ESXi 5.x and vCenter Server 5.x (2014295) 

• The vSphere 5.5 does not need new license keys. The existing 5.0/ 5.1 licenses will work and enable all the features of the software once upgraded

---