VMWare Virtual Hardware Upgrade requires extra extra reboot?

[Oatcake]

I have just upgraded our test environment to vSphere 4.0 using Update Manager. I'm wanting to deploy the VMTools and to upgrade the hardware using the Upgarde Manager. Deploying the tools works fine as does upgrading the hardware.

However, when the hardware upgrade is pushed out, the machine powers off, the hardware is upgraded and then the machine is brought back up. When i log back into windows all the new devices are discovered and installed but i have tomanually perform another rebnoot for all the devices to install properly.

Is this normal behaviuour? I wanted to schedule an update of our VMs out of hours but this would stop me from doing this.

[vmroyale]

Hello.

Is this normal behaviuour? I wanted to schedule an update of our VMs out of hours but this would stop me from doing this.

Yes, this is the normal behavior. It is detailed in the Upgrade Guide.

Good Luck!

[Oatcake]

Yeah I thought as much. I just thought that doing the whole process using Update Manager it would automatically do that second reboot for you so the devices were discoverd and installed during downtime hours.

Although Update Manager has worked great for me so far and I've only been using for a few days I just find it a little frustrating that there is some manual intervention involed in upgrading the hardware.

Is there a possible workaround for this maybe?

[adamy]

There is no workaround. You are adding new hardware like a NIC , a SCSI controller and video controller.

There drivers you installed with the latest VMware tools are initilized when the device manager "sees" the new hardware.

You can probably wait on a reboot until you next patching cycle(With windows that is about once a month if you follow standard patching procedures). Just plan the hardware upgrade a few days before you patch.

If the system is already down for the hardware upgrade what is the problem rebooting it 1 more time?