What the heck is this all about... "vSphere Client requires Windows XP SP2 or later. vSphere Client cannot be installed on a domain controller."
We have several (i.e. 30+) smaller clients where they have two physical servers - one with 2008R2 as a DC (with tape drive attached to backup VMware with BackupExec 2012), and one with ESXi 5.x (with virtual AD server too). If we can't install the 5.5 vSphere Client on the 2008R2 DC, then what are we suppose to do to manage the ESXi server after a boot up or when it is in maintenance mode? Installing it a local PC is not an option (in a few cases, the customer use thin clients to connect to XenApp which is on the ESXi host). I should clarify - there is no vCenter at these sites, thus no Web Client, and the ESXi version is either Standard or Enterprise edition.
At this point - I might as well just migrate these customers to Hyper-V instead... Come on VMware - what where you smoking when you thought this up? If we are going to do this to small customers, we might as well back to licensing by memory too which was another great idea you had to drive away the smaller customers...
dcc
I think that's irrelevant, there's no technical reason why it can't be installed on domain controller, so it shouldn't have that restriction.
I am running vsphere client 5.5 on DC 2012 R2. No issue.
Also, you can install vmware before dcpromo on your server, then you can run it just fine.
Just a thought.
You could do that, but realize it's an unsupported configuration