Every update bumps the version, so in short, there's no way to apply any update without bumping the version. Is there a specific reason you must stay on 7.0 U2a? The only thing I can think of is some third party vendor talking directly to ESXi that has some policy of "we haven't tested it so it's not supported", which with how far back U2a is at this point, I would evaluate this vendor's value vice the risk they are putting your org under by not mitigating security flaws and bug fixed to keep your production systems safe and secure.
Every update bumps the version, so in short, there's no way to apply any update without bumping the version. Is there a specific reason you must stay on 7.0 U2a? The only thing I can think of is some third party vendor talking directly to ESXi that has some policy of "we haven't tested it so it's not supported", which with how far back U2a is at this point, I would evaluate this vendor's value vice the risk they are putting your org under by not mitigating security flaws and bug fixed to keep your production systems safe and secure.
Ah yes, Nutanix, hence the reason why they lost the bid in my environment. Unfortunately, no, you cannot apply anything until they get around to testing it. Why they haven't even tested U2c is beyond me, but that's going to be a problem for you.
