Unable to apply VMWare ESXi free license for

[bkchen]

I must run VMWare ESXi 3.5 u2 to test with our WebSphere Cloudburst appliance. I was unable to apply the VMWare ESXi license that was provided in the Activate your VMWare page sent via e-mail. I get the following message when using the VMWare Infrastracture Client v2.5: "Uploaded license content was not valid". Is there a separate license between ESXi 4 and 3.5? How do I get the license imported?

[MHAV]

The License between ESX3 and ESX4 are different. If you downloaded the ESX3 Version erlier and never got the License Key to it you have to download and install ESX4 and insert the License Key you get for ESX4.

Regards

Michael Haverbeck

If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".

[bkchen]

Unfortunately, the IBM WebSphere Cloudburst Appliance officially only supports ESXi 3.5 Update 2. Also, note that when I went to the VMWare activation page, it states the following immediately below the license:

"This license key is only valid for VMware ESXi 3.5 Update 2 and later"

Thus it seems like it should work but it does not. Is it possible to generate a special key for me to use that is compatible with ESXi 3? Thanks!