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VClone
Contributor
Contributor

Trouble installing vSphere Upgrade + free to Essentials

In the past an ESXi expert has installed an VMware ESXi 4.1 host for my company. That version was free and has already 3 running VMs on it.
In december 2012 i configured a new VMWare ESXi 5.0 Host with 1 running VM on it.
Last month i convinced my employer to buy a VMWare essentials kit for backup security reasons.

Now i want to update the 2 free ESXi versions. I was persuaded that it was easy to change the old key of my free VMware vSphere 5 Hypervisor with my newly received key for vSphere 5 Essentials. But assigning a new key doesn't work.
Possible explanation?
I've downloaded the free ESXi 5 iso with one useraccount. Naturally i used the key from that useraccount.
With another useraccount we bought the new key for vSphere 5 Essentials.

My conversion scenario would be:
1) Upgrade the old ESXi host from version 4.1 to 5.0
2) Assign my vsphere 5 Essentials key to the 2 ESXI 5 hosts
3) Install VMware vCenter on another 64-bit machine and install vCenter Server 5 Essentials to manage my ESXi hosts


So here are my questions:

-Should i upgrade the old ESXi v4 to an ESXi v5, and do i need a Dell R610 custom made version of ESXi 5 or is a default made version of ESXi 5 enough ? (Vmware Easy Upgrade ESXI v4.1 to ESXI 5.0)

-Could it be a problem to change the free VMWare vSphere 5 Hypervisor key (from one account) with the vSphere 5 Essentials key (of another account)?

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weinstein5
Immortal
Immortal

Welceomt to the Community - You do not need the Dell ISO to do the install as long as the old machine is supported for ESXi 5.

Just replacing the license key is all you need to do - this change the license.

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