VMware Tools and VM migration

[RanjnaAggarwal]

I have a question:-

suppose we have esxi host with 2 versions one with esxi4.1 and another with esxi5.5 and vm is running on esxi5.5 with latest vmware tools but with hardware version7. is it possible to migrate this vm to esxi4.1 without any issue even with up to date vmware tools?

[a_p_]

I'm not aware of any VMware Tool version compatibility issues, so this should work just fine

André

[rcporto]

There is no problem since VMware Tools have backward compatibility... you can read more about here: Is a VMware Tools Upgrade Required When Upgrading vSphere? | VMware vSphere Blog - VMware Blogs

And the following image shows this compatibility:

[RanjnaAggarwal]

my question is if the vm is with esxi5.5 version vmware tools can i run this vm on esxi4.1? will it generate any warning on esxi or not?

[rcporto · Accepted solution]

From the link I provided above:

The extended VMware Tools support does two things:

1. It allows virtual machines running older versions of VMware Tools to run in a supported configuration on newer versions of ESXi.

2. It allows virtual machines running newer versions of VMware Tools to run in a supported configuration on older versions of ESX/ESXi.

So, the answer is YES, you can run a VM with VMware Tools from ESXi 5.5 on a ESXi 4.1 without problems.

[vNEX]

Hi,

just in addition here is another post that could interest you:

VMware Front Experience: How to use the latest VMware Tools with older vSphere versions

Regards,

P.