Trying to Clone/Download a VM from ESXi using Workstation

[Tovrin]

First things first, I'm a noob on a budget when it comes to VMWare. I've got a couple of VMs that I use on an ESXi 6.5 server I set up earlier in the year, but I'd like to backup my VMs.

I'm attempting to "Download" the VM onto my PC (/<right click>/Manage/Download), but when it gets to doing it, I get a popup that says Line 25: Unsupported hardware family 'vmx-13'.  I tried cloning, but it tells me that I can't clone a remote VM.

I've been told the reason I can't do this is because Workstation 12.x doesn't support v13 hardware from 6.5 (as per https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=10037...).

Does anyone know if Workstation 14 will fix this issue?  If so, I can wait until then.  Alternatively, is there an easy to use tool (... remember, noob on a budget ....) that can help me back up my VMs?

[bluefirestorm · Accepted solution]

Download OVF Tool 4.2.

https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/details?productId=614&downloadGroup=OVFTOOL420

The problem is that OVF Tool 4.1 that came along with Workstation 12.x are missing some XML files.

After you download and install OVF Tool 4.2 (its default location C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware OVF Tool), you copy the contents from that folder to replace the contents of the OVFTool folder that came with Workstation Pro 12.x (default location C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\OVFTool). Once you replace OVFTool folder contents, Workstation Pro 12.x will be triggering the OVF Tool 4.2 with the necessary files to support upload/download of VMs with hardware version 12 and 13 to/from ESX 6.5 server.

[Tovrin]

Thanks.  Downloading now.  Hope that this does what I want it to do.

[Madz]

Thanks very much for this - worked for me. I also had to do the same thing on Fusion 8.5. Would be great if VMware released an update for these products supplying the updated tool.