The following took me quite a while to figure out and is a bug imho so I want to file it here for other people to know and for VMware to fix it (hopefully).
With vCenter/ESXi 5.5.0 if a VM is created with the bootOrder option set in the bootOptions of the VirtualMachineConfigSpec using the vSphere API then it is NOT possible to import the VM correctly again (after having exported it as an OVF and/or OVA package/file).
In detail the export and import finish without errors but when powering the imported VM the virtual disk seems to be empty (which corresponds to the fact that the import of the VM is fnished within a few seconds, i.e. the virtual disk could not have been imported indeed). The very same VM works correctly when the bootOrder option is removed before exporting/importing it.
Notes: The following parameters didn't have any influence on the outcome:
- VM version vmx-08/vmx-09
- provisioning type of VM disk (original and imported)
- export/import with vSphere Windows Client/vSphere Web Client/ovftool (export done without extra config)
Kind regards,
Patrick