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taylorb
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

How critical is VMware tools upgrade?

Just did a big ESX 4 to ESXi 4.1 upgrade this weekend and now it says all my VMs have out of date VM tools.   I tried upgrading a few and it reboots during the upgrade.  These are about 60 production VMs, so I can't do that unless I specifically schedule downtime which may be another month.   I guess I am wondering if it is a big deal to leave the tools at the older version and if it will negatively impact anything.   

Thanks. 

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vmroyale
Immortal
Immortal

Hello.

You will be fine to leave them at the older version and then upgrade them slowly from there.  There is no rush.

Good Luck!

Brian Atkinson | vExpert | VMTN Moderator | Author of "VCP5-DCV VMware Certified Professional-Data Center Virtualization on vSphere 5.5 Study Guide: VCP-550" | @vmroyale | http://vmroyale.com
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Troy_Clavell
Immortal
Immortal

It is not critical to the guest, but the tools provide drivers and helps performance.  Having "OK" tools means the guest OS has the latest drivers.  I would say get to the most current version as soon as possible, but there is no need to create an emergency downtime just to  update the tools.

You should be fine

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AndreTheGiant
Immortal
Immortal

As written it's not mandatory, but recommended.

For 4.0 to 4.1 I do not remember particular issues, so schedule this task when you can.

Andre

Andrew | http://about.me/amauro | http://vinfrastructure.it/ | @Andrea_Mauro
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bulletprooffool
Champion
Champion

Usually not critical - and no major bug fixes between these versions.

What I normally do is package and deploy VMTools with my normal OS patches (so when I roll the Microsoft patch tueaday patches, I deploy VMTools in the same hit)

One day I will virtualise myself . . .
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