Question about accessing machine with VMware ESXi on it

[Ncro]

Hello all,

I am fairly new to VMware and I am attempting to access a server our company acquired and pull off email files and documents stored there. This server is running VMWare ESXI 4.1 and has two virtual machines on it. A small business server and a terminal server.

How would I go about trying to access this server? I was able to RDP into the business server via IP address before, but somehow that is not working with our network now.

Am I able to install a program on my laptop to access the server and see if the virtual machine has an issue? Would Vsphere be the way to go? I registered on VMwares site for a 60 day free trial and wasn't sure what to download.

Any assistance is greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

[a_p_]

Welcome to the Community,

are you able to access the ESXi host at all? If you can't, you may want to reconfigure the Management Network through the DCUI (the host's console).

Once done, open the ESXi host via FQDN, or IP address in a web browser. There you should find a link to the Windows based vSphere Client download location.

André

[IRIX201110141]

Well.... vSphere ESXi 4.1 is way outdated. If you have a standalone ESXi Hosts in the old days the prefered way to manage the Hosts by using the Windows application named "vSphere Client" aka the C# Windows based vSphere Client. You type enter IP/FQDN and User("root") and Password to connect..... it used a couple of Ports like 902,903, 443 to reach the ESXi APIs.

Take a look to How to install VMware vSphere client 6.0 – VM Virtualization | VMware ESXi, vSphere, Vcloud, DR..., ...

You can multible versions of the vSphere Client installed on your Windows PC but you always need a version which matched the ESXi Host version.

If you try to connect your ESXi trough the Browser htttps://<IP>/ you will get a Welcome screen and the download URL for the Client.

This C# Windows based vSphere Client is depricated since ESXi 5.5 and stops working after ESXi 6.0  IIRC VMware have reused the term "vSphere Client" for there latest HTML5  based version of the vCenter Client. So dont be confused

Regards
Joerg