Which version of Vmware Tools to use with ESXi

[Sonnie]

Hi,

I have a setup with ESXi 5.1.0 Build 799733 and some Windows 7 Pro Virtual Machines.

In the Windows VM's I have VmWare Tools 9.0.0 build 782409 installed.

Because of some strange crashes of VM's I would like to eliminate VmWare Tools as the cause and update to the latest version possible.

Am I using the correct version of the VmWare Tools?

Can I update to 9.0.10-1479193 (currently the latest version) without a problem or is there a specific version which matches my ESXi 5.1.0?

If I upgrade, do I need to do an uninstall of the current version and then install the latest or can I upgrade without uninstalling?

Would upgrading to ESXi 5.5 be advisable?

Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

John

[homerzzz]

What kind of crashes are you experiencing? What is the current virtual hardware setup for your VMs (NIC type etc) ? You can always upgrade your esxi hosts to the latest 5.1 build and upgrade the vmtools on the VMs with the tools version available with the latest 5.1 build. It has been my experience that the ESXi 5.1 build 799733 is buggy.

[SureshKumarMuth]

Go to the VM summary tab and check the vmtools status, if it shows ok/installed then you are in the right version. In case if it shows out of data, you have to update that. For upgrading the tools, just right click the VM --> guest --> install/upgrade vmware tools. You may have to reboot the virtual machine once the installation/upgrade task is done.

[steveb05]

Tool versions available to be automatically installed are specific to the ESX version. However, you can get the image files for other versions and install them manually. Be careful doing that though as it would likely not be supported.

[Sonnie]

When the VM crashes, it reboots but doesn't startup normally.

The windows logo appears and "animates", text showing is "Starting windows...", and there it stops.

Analyzing crash-dumpfiles didn't give any clues to the reason of the crash.

I will look into upgrading ESXi at least to the latest 5.1 version, maby even to 5.5.