Video Training Tiplet: Upgrading the vSphere Client to 4.1

Another Video Training Tiplet for you.  This time, we’re taking a look at the many ways to upgrade the vSphere Client to v4.1.  While the upgrade itself is pretty standard stuff, sometimes just finding the right client can be a challenge.  This tiplet shows you how.

TRANSCRIPT:

Hey, this is Greg Shields with another Windows IT Pro Video Training Tiplet, this time we’re upgrading the VMware vSphere Client from version 4.0 to version 4.1.

After you’ve gone through upgrading one or more of your servers from version 4.0 to 4.1, you’re gonna’ find that you’re going to need to upgrade that vSphere client to the new version. The version 4.0 client does not work with servers that are at version 4.1; however, the reverse is true. If you have a 4.1 client, you’ll actually still be able to work with your 4.0 servers.

Now there are a couple of different ways in which you can get the client. You may or may not know that the vSphere Client is no longer deployed with ESX or ESXi. So, downloading it something that’s going to have to happen over the Internet.

If you have a vCenter Server and you attempt to connect to that vCenter Server – you can see here vcenter.company.pri – if you attempt to connect to that vCenter Server by clicking the logon button here you’ll notice an interesting box that pops up letting you know that you need to download those required client support files. VMware does actually package the vCenter Client with vCenter Server, even though they don’t with ESX or ESXi. So, you can click here to save the installer, click it, download it, run it, and actually complete the installation using this facility.

Now, if you just have ESX or ESXi servers the process to do this is going to be just a little bit different. You’ll see here that I’ve brought up Internet Explorer, and what I want to do instead is go to HTTP with the IP address for that server. There will be a problem with the website’s security certificate, but that’s OK. What we want to do is get here to this ESXi website where we’re going to be pointed to where we can download the vSphere Client.

Notice that this vSphere Client actually points us – down here in the lower-left – to vsphereclient.vmware.com. So, VMware is essentially making a location available on the Internet for downloading that correct version of the vSphere client. If instead, instead of going to my ESX server, I want to go to my vCenter Server, you’ll notice something interesting. It’s a little bit different here. If I click to continue through to the website, I can download the vSphere Client and that vSphere Client is indeed a local client. They’re both the same. But this is just the location as to where you’re going to have to grab that client.

If you want to get a little bit advanced here, you can also manipulate where an individual ESX server actually goes to get its vSphere Client. You’ll notice that we’ve got this URL that we were looking at before. This URL is actually identified here on that ESXi server. What I want to do is bring up Tech Support Mode, and once I’ve brought forward Tech Support Mode the location I want to take a look at is /usr/lib/vmware/hostd/docroot/client. In this location is going to be a file called clients.xml, which essentially just tells the website where to go to get that client.

I’m taking a look at that file here inside of vi and you’ll see this that takes me to vsphereclient.vmware.com. You can’t go directly to [the root of] this website, but you can go to the entire full path of this website to download the correct version of the vSphere client. Now obviously this is going to change as the build numbers change, as the version numbers change. You can even modify this if you want to go to a local location for downloading the client. But at least this gives you some information about the different mechanisms you’ll go through to get that updated vSphere Client.

And don’t forget to come on back to WindowsITPro.com for more Video Training Tiplets. Thanks for listening.