Questions using Update Manager for VMtools and VM Hardware version

[dchunt]

I have recently moved some VM's that are running with Hardware version 7 and VMtools for ESX 4.0 to ESXi hosts running vSphere 5.1.  Obviously the hardware version and the VMtools version for the VMs now show up as out of date.  I want to update both.  My questions are:

1.  After attaching the 'VMware Tools Upgrade to Match host' and 'VM Hardware Upgrade to Match Host' baselines, and scanning the VM's for compliance, I find that they are out of compliance.  Now I go to remediate the VM's and the default (first) baseline it wants to use is 'VM Hardware Upgrade to Match Host'.  I thought that best practice was to upgrade the VMtools first on the VM before I upgrade the Hardware version.  Is this a bug?

2.  Is there a way to do both processes at the same time?  IE can I use Update manager to install the updated VMtools and shut down the host then change the machine version to vmx-09 then bring the machine back up or do I have to do two reboots?

3.  Can I do this manually?

4.  Is there a way to upgrade VMtools and then the VM version using powercli?

Thanks,

Dan

[chriswahl]

1.  After attaching the 'VMware Tools Upgrade to Match host' and 'VM Hardware Upgrade to Match Host' baselines, and scanning the VM's for compliance, I find that they are out of compliance.  Now I go to remediate the VM's and the default (first) baseline it wants to use is 'VM Hardware Upgrade to Match Host'.  I thought that best practice was to upgrade the VMtools first on the VM before I upgrade the Hardware version.  Is this a bug?

2.  Is there a way to do both processes at the same time?  IE can I use Update manager to install the updated VMtools and shut down the host then change the machine version to vmx-09 then bring the machine back up or do I have to do two reboots?

3.  Can I do this manually?

4.  Is there a way to upgrade VMtools and then the VM version using powercli?

Thanks,

Dan

1. The baselines are in alphabetical order. You are correct to do the tools first and then hardware version.

2 / 3 / 4. I typically just use a PowerCLI script to update tools without a reboot, and then remediate the hardware version later (which takes care of the reboot).

Avoiding Those Pesky Reboots when Updating VMware Tools

[AnandRamachandr]

Hi,

The prerequisite for upgrading the vm hardware version is the tools version should be latest ie the tools on the vm should match with the version of tools on the host.

The soloution for your problem is to create a baseline group with baselines 'VMware Tools Upgrade to Match host' and 'VM Hardware Upgrade to Match Host' . Then attach the baseline  and perfrom remediate operation. In this case Update Manager is clever enough to remediate the tools first and hardware later.

Thanks

Anand