Confirm installed location of vCenter Server?

[dsohayda]

I'm planning on upgrading from vcenter server 4.1 to 5.1 but since I didn't build the box originally I was wondering if there is a way to confirm where it was originally installed, the C drive or a secondary D volume. Under D there is a VMware folder with separate folders for Infrastructure, VMware Update Manager and VMware vCenter Converter. Meanwhile the C drive has a VMware folder under ProgramData (2008 server) with an Installer, VMware Remote Console, VMware Update Manager, VMware vCenter Converter, and VMware VirtualCenter folder inside. Documentation for this particular server leads me to believe it was installed on the D drive, but I'd love to be able to find out for sure before going through the upgrade only to find out i've installed a second instance on another location on the server!

[vmroyale · Accepted solution]

Note: Discussion successfully moved from VMware ESXi™ 4 to VMware vCenter™ Server

Look in services.msc and get the properties of the VMware VirtualCenter Server service. That will give you the path to the executable.

[CSSMP]

It looks like they installed on C: drive (vmware virtualcenter) along with other defaults and then put the Infrastructure (Log Files and such) as well as converter and updates separately as many users do to separate the data files from app files. However, installing/upgrading to v5.x is very interesting and I would suggest you read though the documentation carefully as my upgrade hit a few bumps from v4.1 to v5.1. Anyway, if your vCenter is currently a VM then make a clone or snap it to backup prior to upgrade so you have a roll back plan is what I suggest.

Regards, CSSMP

[dsohayda]

Great! thank you for the replies. path to executable is what I was looking for. It appears everything was installed to D. Strange that so much piles up on C anyway, but that's windows for you.