vSphere Client 5 U1 can't connect to ESXi 4.1 U1 Host

[CarlosCabral]

Hello there,

I'm having a little issue.

I'm currently using vSphere Client 5 U1 (5.0.0 Build 623373) to connect directly to ESXi hosts (no vCenter yet).

I can successfully connect to 5.0 U1 hosts, but I have some legacy 4.1 U1 hosts in the lab which I can't connect with.

A little research in the Compatibility Matrixes show that with the most recent client I should be able to connect do older ESXi hosts.

Though, when I try to connect to this 4.1 U1 host, I get an update popup with the message "The required client support files need to be retrieved from the server "vsphereclient.vmware.com" and installed. " And then I get a prompt to install/save a installer.

What is this new installer? Another version of the Client? Don't I have the most recent one? Anyway, I can't complete the download for this new installer either (connection failure).

The ESXi 4.1 host is on the network and I can connect to it with an older Client (4.1) which is installed in another workstation.

What's happening here?

Thanks in advance!

[yannbizeul · Accepted solution]

You need to install as many vSphere client as major versions (3, 4, 5) but VMware tries to make this process as transparent as possible. That's why it asks to install it automatically.

Once installed, you just run v5 and it will automatically and transparently switch to the right version if you connect to a 4.x server.

[CarlosCabral]

Thanks!

Actually, as I'm not Administrator of my Win7 box, I wasn't able to perform this 'autoinstall' the client prompts (no install permissions for my user).