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Cougar281
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ESXi 5.5 Free Hypervisor Web Console

I just downloaded the free version of ESXi 5.5 to start evaluating it relative to 5.1. From reading, VMware is moving to a web console only, with the native client only for 'emergency access' to the host (Why is everyone going to web consoles? they tend to be more problematic than native consoles...).

With the free version, how are you supposed to get the Web Console? There's a reference under the vSphere client download saying: 'Note: vSphere Web Client can be installed using the vCenter Server installer', but that's not available to download when you register for the free version. So if you have the free version, what's the right way to get the web client and what are you supposed to install it on? If the web console is now going to be required to access newer features of the Hypervisor, maybe VMware should consider providing the vCenter appliance with the free version, with the paid features disabled, of course.

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allanregistos
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jkopp wrote:

@allanregistos

I have to assume that your conclusions were drawn from using the product without applying a software license.  VMWare will provide you with a free software license that bascially removes all advanced features.  All that's left is 8-way virtual SMP.  This means after applying my license, I can still create and mange guests with up to 8 logical processors and as much RAM as I'd like to assign (no more 32GB maximum) and can edit the hardware via the GUI client provided I don't upgrade the guest harware to v10.  I'm going to attempt to sway your decisions, but I totally disagree with your conclusion and ask that you give it another look. Smiley Happy

@ Thanks for correcting me.  I thought if the hypervisor can no longer be managed with a GUI client after the trial period expires. I've seen the license key, but don't know how am I going to apply it (See below how). I have used VMware Servers 1.x and 2.x in the past and its easy to apply a license via a gui.

@   .  Thanks for clarifying. I now retracted my earlier conclusions regarding vSphere Hypervisor.

Regards,

Allan

(Edit: Free license applied via Configuration tab, License Features link of the vSphere client.)

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mldmld
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Hi all,

I looked here : http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=204608...

When using Free ESXi 5.5, there is no many improvement to use hardware v10.

I think one may stay on hardware 8.

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athompson88
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Part of it is certainly the hardware v10 support, but a great benefit of the free hypervisor, as an enthusiast or small-business, is being able to manage your architecture as you would with a pay-license, even if certain features are disabled. If vmware wants users to move to a web-based management system, then that's the type of management system the free license should support as well. For example, Red Hat, Oracle and MS SQL Server all have free offerings, but the tools used to manage them are the same as the tools you would use for an enterprise level infrastructure.

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jababr
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Well, I think it's great to use esxi 5.5, even with the limitation of the hardware functions v10. But I'm sad because I can not test these new functions for longer than the period of review in the same way I do with other features such as: expanding the memory limit, update vmware-tools, among others.

In short, almost not worth it to upgrade to 5.5 since it has to improve is not available freely as titled.

hugs

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sh0ck-wave
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If VMware released v10 support for the free product, why would you buy it ?

The 'latest' of anything is reserved for the paying customers.

The 'free' users have access to tech from a couple version back.

Many companies use this.

Sure VMware may have been scant in their divulgence of information regarding this, but I can see that .. in the end .. we're using something for free so there's a bit of 'suck it and see' involved.

The migrating from Workstation to Free locking it down to v10 is anoying though, and this should have been documented.

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allanregistos
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The 'latest' of anything is reserved for the paying customers.

The 'free' users have access to tech from a couple version back.

Many companies use this.

If I'd already knew this, I should have downloaded the lower version, but now its too late, I already have 5.5 installed.  I am using VMware because it has an excellent conversion tool.  VMware really provide excellent tools for physical to virtual migration path,  I think thats what most companies needed since they must have legacy operating systems/apps thats impossible to replicate, and the only thing thats needed is to convert them to VMs as what I've done.

Regards...

Allan

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jababr
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Really, I would not buy license if I could have it all for free. But in previous versions, the restriction of "free" version was the number of processor cores and amount of RAM for virtual machines, which precluded the use of scale in production, but allowed to do actual tests on structures much smaller hardware, with limited processing and memory. This allowed me, for example, to test a given system in a smaller, separate production environment, with the same resources (on a smaller scale) available in the production environment.
In this new version (5.5) is no longer possible, because I'm not available on a smaller scale, the same resources, which forces me to do one of two things: Buy an additional license for tests only out of production or else do direct test in the production and risk of "messing in what's working."

Thank´s

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Cougar281
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The main problem with the whole situation isn't so much the lack of the new v10 only features, or the lack of the web console in the free version. The biggest problem is the fact that if you use the full client to manage the free hypervisor, which you have to do, and say you're on v4 virtual hardware but need/want to upgrade to v8 - How do you do it? If you use the console to upgrade (Right-Click > Upgrade Virtual Hardware), it'll take you right to v10 and you're screwed (yes, there are ways to fix it, but it's not 'right click - downgrade'). This wouldn't really be an issue if either A) The console would only upgrade the machine to v8 or v9, which can still be managed with it, or B) It prompted you, asking which version you wanted to go to like the web console does.

Personally, I'm not overly fond of the web console for a variety of reasons. I'd MUCH rather use the 'old' client...

The other argument to VMware with regards to what's free and what isn't is that with Hyper-V, you pretty much get all the features you'd get with VMware's Essentials Plus package for free. Two such examples are live Migration (Essentials plus or higher) and Live Storage migration (Standard or above as of now - I think it used to be Enterprise or Enterprise Plus in the past). Essentials is a joke - you pay ~$500 to get the web console.

VMware makes a great product, but it just seems like they want to price themselves out of the market.

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Phatsta
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I just converted a powered on machine with vmware converter to an esxi 5.5 host, and had no idea about this problem, so I overlooked the hardware version which by default gets set to 10. This of course resulted in not being able to edit the vm. I solved it by converting the vm to a new vm, changing the hardware version to 9 in the process. Just in case anyone finds themselves in the same situation. Hope it helps.

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vlho
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Hi,

here:

http://www.v-front.de/2014/02/how-to-uprade-your-vms-virtual-hardware.html

is guide how to upgrade your VMs virtual harware to only version 9.

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cupacm
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sh0ck-wave wrote:

If VMware released v10 support for the free product, why would you buy it ?

The 'latest' of anything is reserved for the paying customers.

The 'free' users have access to tech from a couple version back.

Many companies use this.

Sure VMware may have been scant in their divulgence of information regarding this, but I can see that .. in the end .. we're using something for free so there's a bit of 'suck it and see' involved.

The migrating from Workstation to Free locking it down to v10 is anoying though, and this should have been documented.

I see things quite contrary: 'latest' of anything is reserved for people who are willing to test bleeding edge stuff, give feedback, report problems, write patches etc. Wise companies value this kind of feedback more than cash.

Considering cash ("paying customers") to be more valuable than user feedback drives away potential problem reporters and patch writers first. As a consequence, product for which "paying customers" are willing to give money deteriorates. Ultimately, "paying customers" jump the ship as well (if there is a better one).

I don't see my usage of free ESXi hypervisor comparable to "lucky me, I get all this great stuff and I don't have to give anything back". I am happy to upgrade one of the hypervisors I care for to the new version, see how it goes, give feedback, and receive solutions to any reported problems. Unfortunately, for 5.5, I see some problems which are not solved for quite some time now. Hope it gets better in the future.

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allanregistos
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cupacm wrote:

sh0ck-wave wrote:

If VMware released v10 support for the free product, why would you buy it ?

The 'latest' of anything is reserved for the paying customers.

The 'free' users have access to tech from a couple version back.

Many companies use this.

Sure VMware may have been scant in their divulgence of information regarding this, but I can see that .. in the end .. we're using something for free so there's a bit of 'suck it and see' involved.

The migrating from Workstation to Free locking it down to v10 is anoying though, and this should have been documented.

I see things quite contrary: 'latest' of anything is reserved for people who are willing to test bleeding edge stuff, give feedback, report problems, write patches etc. Wise companies value this kind of feedback more than cash.

Considering cash ("paying customers") to be more valuable than user feedback drives away potential problem reporters and patch writers first. As a consequence, product for which "paying customers" are willing to give money deteriorates. Ultimately, "paying customers" jump the ship as well (if there is a better one).

I don't see my usage of free ESXi hypervisor comparable to "lucky me, I get all this great stuff and I don't have to give anything back". I am happy to upgrade one of the hypervisors I care for to the new version, see how it goes, give feedback, and receive solutions to any reported problems. Unfortunately, for 5.5, I see some problems which are not solved for quite some time now. Hope it gets better in the future.

Testing the latest and the greatest of features naturally happened within Open Source projects, eg. Redhat and Fedora, RHEV(Paying customers) and Ovirt(FOSS users).  I have received invitations in the past of beta version of VMWare workstation, but don't have the courage to test it because I need production-ready, it maybe handy for testing and being a hobbyist, but aside from that, is there any other purpose? That's the beauty that FOSS projects bring into the table. FOSS can be used in production servers.  In VMware beta products, I only see one value beyond 'testing' and being a hobbyist, in any case, you must correct me.  Being a free VMware product user, the only _value_ I can give to VMware is to use their beta products and provide feedback.  Aside from that, there is nothing else.

So, if you use free VMware products like the hypervisor, in return, I think we will use their beta products and provide feedback.  That's our payment to VMware, and in that respect, VMWare must provide also a better way of managing their Free products w/o giving those advance features.

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allanregistos
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cupacm wrote:

sh0ck-wave wrote:

If VMware released v10 support for the free product, why would you buy it ?

The 'latest' of anything is reserved for the paying customers.

The 'free' users have access to tech from a couple version back.

Many companies use this.

Sure VMware may have been scant in their divulgence of information regarding this, but I can see that .. in the end .. we're using something for free so there's a bit of 'suck it and see' involved.

The migrating from Workstation to Free locking it down to v10 is anoying though, and this should have been documented.

I see things quite contrary: 'latest' of anything is reserved for people who are willing to test bleeding edge stuff, give feedback, report problems, write patches etc. Wise companies value this kind of feedback more than cash.

Considering cash ("paying customers") to be more valuable than user feedback drives away potential problem reporters and patch writers first. As a consequence, product for which "paying customers" are willing to give money deteriorates. Ultimately, "paying customers" jump the ship as well (if there is a better one).

I don't see my usage of free ESXi hypervisor comparable to "lucky me, I get all this great stuff and I don't have to give anything back". I am happy to upgrade one of the hypervisors I care for to the new version, see how it goes, give feedback, and receive solutions to any reported problems. Unfortunately, for 5.5, I see some problems which are not solved for quite some time now. Hope it gets better in the future.

Testing the latest and the greatest of features naturally happened within Open Source projects, eg. Redhat and Fedora, RHEV(Paying customers) and Ovirt(FOSS users).  I have received invitations in the past of beta version of VMWare workstation, but don't have the courage to test it because I need production-ready, it maybe handy for testing and being a hobbyist, but aside from that, is there any other purpose? That's the beauty that FOSS projects bring into the table. FOSS can be used in production servers.  In VMware beta products, I only see one value beyond 'testing' and being a hobbyist, in any case, you must correct me.  Being a free VMware product user, the only _value_ I can give to VMware is to use their beta products and provide feedback.  Aside from that, there is nothing else.

So, if you use free VMware products like the hypervisor, in return, I think we will use their beta products and provide feedback.  That's our payment to VMware, and in that respect, VMWare must provide also a better way of managing their Free products w/o giving those advance features.

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Kilas
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Hello

there is a simple way, stop the VM and create a new VM (version 😎 pointing to the old .vmdk and it will solve your issues.

Regards

António

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Phatsta
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Thats actually really clever. Never thought of that. Much faster than using Converter. Nice!

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GapManCA
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Another way is as stated earlier in this post:

  1) Download the VMX file of the machine

  2) Open it in an editor

  3) Modify the virtualHW.version line to look like the following: virtualHW.version = "8"

  4) If the machine already exists on your ESXi host, remove it from inventory

  5) Re-add the machine to inventory

Your machine should boot up normally now.

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admin
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ilsa
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This may be the "correct" answer, but it isn't even remotely acceptable.

It used to be possible to manage ESXi using the built in client.  If the built in client cannot handle the new features, then the new features should be *disabled by default*, and should not be accessible at all.

What VMWare has done is effectively somewhere between bait-and-switch and extortion, because they're giving people a "free" product that they know full well is almost unusable unless you drop several grand on one of their paid products.  The only alternative is to dance on eggshells to avoid any new functionality, and go through hell to restore your environment if you made the mistake of upgrading, naively assuming that VMWare was providing a simple and logical upgrade.

This behaviour is nothing less than malicious.

We're currently in the process of evaluating our current IT infrastructure, and VMWare has just made a precipitous drop on our list.  We have no interest in working with vendors who dick people around in order to squeeze them for money.

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athompson88
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I think I'm confused because this KB seemed to address the main thrust which was that the free version could be used to put the vm into a state in which the thick client could no longer be used to manage the vm (i.e. upgrading the vm to version 10 hardware). This seems to have returned to users of the free version the ability to run and manage their vms with the thick client at the same level they could with lower hardware versions. Apologies if I missed something.

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ilsa
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The article specifically talks about a failure with the VCenter VSphere management console.  The console that comes with ESXi is still effectively useless with 5.5 unless you go through contortions just to have a working VM that you can manage.

VMWare has effectively made their "free" ESXi practically unusable to anyone who isn't a paying customer.

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