ESXi 5.5 - vSphere Web Client download

[kungpow]

I just installed VMware ESXi 5.5 Free Edition on a Dell server, when I open up VMware vSphere Client it says the following:

"In vSphere 5.5, all new vSphere features are available only through the vSphere Web Client. The traditional vSphere Client will continue to operate, supporting the same feature set as vSphere 5.0, but not exposing any of the new features in vSphere 5.5.

The vSphere Client is still used for the vSphere Update Manager (VLM) and Host Client, along with a few solutions (eg. Site Recovery Manager)."

Where do I download vSphere Web Client?

Thanks

[aravinds3107 · Accepted solution]

weblclient is available as a part vCenter ISO. Only if you are managing the ESXi host via vCenter you can use webclient. If you are using Free ESXi vSphere Client is the only way to manage the ESXi host

[rhaslund]

Make sure you do not upgrade virtual hardware higher than version 8.

Otherwise you will not be able to manage the VM using the vSphere Client.

[JarryG]

vSphere Client (5.5) can manage VM of up to hardware version 9. But it can create VM only of hw-version 8, and upgrade them directly to v10 (which it can not manage). But it can still manage VMs with hw-version 9 (i.e. those created & upgraded by vSphere Client 5.1)...

[polczym]

Thank you rhaslund.

This saved me some headaches.

[IT_Architect]

Thank you rhaslund and JarryG for shining the light on the ESXi 5.5 client trap.  The moral of the story is:
- Don't upgrade beyond ESXi 5.1.
- Don't upgrade VMware Workstation beyond Version 9.

Thanks TONS!

[lesmikesell_hyp]

That's ummm... interesting, since ESXi 5.5 seems to be required for hosts with >32G RAM and the matching converter wants to default to version 10 when copying images over.

[rhaslund]

You can use VMware Workstation 10 to manage the ESXi 5.5 hosts without a Web Client.

[decibelawn]

VMware vCenter Converter Standalone Client seems to be able to select the version of the output machine, so can convert version 10 back to version 8. (Just trying it now. Seems to be working)

[justingoldberg]

You can use VMware Workstation 10 to manage the ESXi 5.5 hosts without a Web Client

That's correct. Vmware workstation 10 will manage them and access the advanced features.

Same with vmware workstation 11 and esxi 6 (I'm not sure about vmware workstation 12 though, Vmware takes things away on their whim all the time)

[sprhd]

If a VMware Workstation 10 is a guest can it also mange the host?