If your VMs are already up and running on the server you are fine. You just cannot power up or VMotion VMs. If you need to do something with the server set the date prior to the 12th August

ie From VI CLient, click on ESX Host > Configuration > Time Configuration > Properties and change the time to 10 aug 2008

Then do what you have to on the box and then flick the date forward if you need it to be correct

Leonard...
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Don't forget if the answers help, award points

I have a paid VMware Foundation Server license, and just had this happen to me on my ESXi Server. I went to my license configuration page and saw that everything was listed as "Unlicensed Use". I fixed it in 5 minutes by restarting the license server on the machine where VirtualCenter was installed. Not that this is acceptable, but for those folks who need a quick fix, this will enable you to start your VMs.

Update: I spoke too soon. This solved the "Unlicensed Use" issue, but I still can't start up my VMs! This is very problematic. And no, I can't turn the clock back to August 10th. These are production systems and my engineers will crucify me.

Hit us as well, fortunately we don't have too many hosts on update 2 yet, work around worked for us to.

It's unfortunate that you all should be even dealing with this, it's yet another black eye for VMware as they try and rush products out the door. If you've been using ESX for a while you've probably noticed that the product quality in the last year has not been what it used to be. They're trying to compete with all these other products now and they don't spend enough time testing their code before they release it. I would say this bug was because of beta code that was meant to expire on a certain date and was never removed. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. This should of never happened.

Eric Siebert
VMware Communities User Moderator
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Is there any confirmation on which component is broken?

• ESX host 3.5 U2 build-103908
• Virtual Centre 2.5 U2 build 104215
• License Server FLEXnet Licensing (v10.8.0.9 build 26824)

My idea is to install another instance of License Server based on VC 2.5 U1, and give it a copy of the licences.

Will this help ?

Virgil