How to upgrade to VMware ESX 4.1 and ESXi 4.1 using VMware Update Manager

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1022140 This video details upgrading to VMware ESX 4.1 or VMware ESXi 4.1 by using VMware Update Manager. The video can apply to ESX and ESXi 3.5 and 4.0. This video is part of a series of videos that overview the various ways to upgrade.

• Category

  Science & Technology

[mellonsan]

Does this also work with vSphere 5 Client?

[VMwareKB]

If your question is "can I use the vSphere 5 Client to interact with older versions of ESX and Update Manager", then the answer is yes, they should be backwards compatible.

[VMwareKB]

You can use vihostupdate. Check out the link in the details section of this video. There's a video for how to do it.

[EricZBA]

Why did you discontinue the VMware Host Update Utility? No one wants to use the convoluted piece of garbage that is VMware update Manager :(

Bring back the easy and SIMPLE to use VMware Host Update Utility!

[Strykenine]

When the host is in maintenance mode you will not be able to run any VM's on it. If you have the ability to vmotion onto another host, you should do that and upgrade just one host in your cluster at a time. If you just have the one host, you are looking at VM downtime for this upgrade.

[ka62666]

vmotion to other available host would not have downtime.it has downtime literally or theoritically but it really cannot be detected in real world. in other words,the vm servers in the involved esx hosts wont have any downtime during esx maintenance mode

[ka62666]

hi mate,to ensure ur host is compliant, u should select all related patch box baseline.

[David Hesse]

according to VMware Support you need to apply 2 patches if you are using ESX 3.5 Update 2 before you can continue using your Update Manager Host Upgrade Baseline using the ESX-4.1.0-update02-502767.iso.

This came to my surprise and delayed my upgrade project as I had to apply too patches using "esxupdate" before I could use the previosuly created Upgrade Baseline.

Thie VMware KB article and the video and the Update Manager does not inlcude any of this important facts! This needs to be updated

[David Hesse]

this does look very easy and I actually created the exact same baseline for upgrading 2 ESX 3.5 Update 2 Hosts (238493) and everything looked OK at the end until I attached the baseline to my two ESX 3.5 Hosts and ran a compliance scan on them. It then showed me that the upgrade were non compliant! A call to VMware Support revealed that this means that the hosts are not in compliance with the created Upgrade Baseline. I also was told that I need to apply 2 ESX patches before I can run my upgrade

[cjohnson596]

I'd like to know if the virtual machines running are affected by the host bouncing in and out of maintenance mode during the upgrade... in other words, is there any downtime on the VMs during upgrade?

[Ernest G. Wilson II]

Nicely done!