Guest OSes Reported Incorrectly

[Mike_MT]

I have recently upgraded everything from 4.0 to 4.1 and I noticed that some guest OSes are being reported incorrectly.  Specifically some Server 2008 R2 servers are being reported as Server 2008 - many of these servers were created from the same template.  I don't see any performance impact or usability issues, so this is probably just a cosmetic issue.

Anyone else see this?

Mike

[Troy_Clavell]

shouldn't cause any performance impact, but will impact reporting on your Inventory.  I would check the template and ensure it has the right OS, then change the guests in question, which requires the VM to be powered down

Edit Settings--Options Tab - Guest OS

[Mike_MT]

I think the template is fine.

The scenario is:  Template1 (2008 R2) - create Server1, Server2, Server3.

Each OS (via Control Panel, System) reports Server 2008 R2

vCenter reports Server1 = 2008 R2, Server2 = 2008, Server3 = 2008

So it looks like vCenter is reporting incorrectly.  However, I just reloaded vCenter and it looks okay...but sorting the servers by Guest OS resets the values to 2008 and it looks like it might have to refresh the values before reporting R2 correctly.  Also, going into different folders shows different values...so this just might be my environment (slow vCenter refreshes?)

[Troy_Clavell]

restarting your vCenter Server Service could help, you may also want to restart the management agents on the ESX host(s) where the guest are registered as well.

[CookieJarvis]

My vCenter system and the various Guests and Hosts have been shut down often enough. I noted that the "Guest OS" reported in the summary view of a VM would show something like "Microsoft Windows Server 2008 (32-bit)" , but when I use vmrun to poll the guest OS I get an abbreviated name which...under the worst circumstances is "Longhorn".   I look at the vmx files in the datastore and I see where "Longhorn" is coming from.   Where is vCenter getting it's info from...and How can I retrieve that value.  I noted on one of my Linux systems that updating the Guest OS under Edit Settings --> Options will update the Guest OS that displays in the summary view.  I also noticed that the full 'long name" for my "Longhorn" system shows in Edit Settings --> Options.    -- So why doesn't vmrun ReadVariable get the correct answer?  -- because its not written correctly in the .vmx file.  I need to script a process that runs on Windows VM's and I wanted to use the Guest OS property as a control point.  This is harder if my GuestOS variable returns different results from what is displayed in vCenter.