Hello,
I have VCenter 5.0 , Build 913577 running on Windows 2008 R2 and we are planning to upgrade the Windows to latest version. need suggestion on the below.
1). Maximum supported Windows Guest OS and any other consideration for the OS inplace upgrade?.
2). Can we upgrade the VCenter from 5.0 to 6.0 as appliance ?.
The way forward is definitely the appliance. I would highly recommend using 6.5 or 6.7 and just create a new cluster and pull the hosts in. Unless you absolutely need the historical performance data etc from vCenter. You need to be on 6.0 first before you can migrate to the VCSA (Migrate to the vCenter Server Appliance - VMware vSphere Blog )
Would also recommend you to go through these posts The vSphere Upgrade Blog Series (Wrap-Up) - VMware vSphere Blog
1). Maximum supported Windows Guest OS and any other consideration for the OS inplace upgrade?
You can upgrade Windows VC 5.0 to 6.0 U2 and then migrate to VCSA 6.5/6.7 . Make sure to upgrade the ESXi's also .
2). Can we upgrade the VCenter from 5.0 to 6.0 as appliance ?.
Nope. You can come to Windows 6.0 and then migrate to VCSA 6.5/6.7 .
Regards,
AJ
I would also clone the existing vcenter to revert to if something goes wrong.
Make sure you are rooted into the esxi host where the appliance is running.