How to upgrade Free ESXi 3.5 to ESXi 4.0

Here is quick steps of ‘ How to upgrade Free ESXi 3.5 to ESXi 4.0 ‘. The procedure is pretty straightforward, but it take a time… be patient!. Of course, before start this process, make sure you bot copy of VMs.

1. Backup

It is very important step. Everything is on you risk, but Always Always Always backup is needed in any circumstance. Don’t make a situation to pull your hair in your failure. Definitely not a good thing.

We have installed Veeam FastSCP free version. Yes it does support Free ESXi 3.5 and 4.0. It is really fast compared to other ways to back up and restore.

Also, before starting upgrade your Free ESXi3.5, power down all the guest OSs and put your ESXi 3.5 on "maintenance mode"

2. Download upgrade package

You need to download ESXi 4.0 upgrade package from the VMware website. The file looks like "ESXi-4.0.0-xxxxxx-upgrade-release.zip". You need to register, not just only get the package, but also getting ESXi 4.0 licenses.

3. Download Free vSphere Client 4.0

You can download vSphere Client 4.0 from VMware website, or you can extract it from the ESXi 4.0 package using 7-zip manager. See the path to extract below picture.

ESXi-4.0.0-1.9.208167-upgrade-release.zip\VMware-viclient.vib\data.tar.gz\data.tar\.\4.0.0\client\

4. Install VMware Free vSphere Client 4.0

During installation, choose option " Install vSphere Host Update Utility 4.0"

5. Execute vSphere Host Update Utility

Start > All Programs > vSphere Host Update Utility

6. Ready to upgrade

If you a workstation that installed vSphere Host Upgrade Utility is on same network segment, you vSphere Host Upgrade Utility will automatically detect your ESXi 3.5 host.
See product name & version, it indicated as ESXi 3.5 build xxxx. Click "Upgrade Host"

7. Browse and select Free ESXi 4.0 upgrade Package

8. Check a box on agreement.

9. Host Credentials

Put user name and password of administrative account of ESXi 3.5 host.

10. Verifying Host Credentials

11. Click " Finish " to start upgrading process

12. Patient!

We saw huge hung period at 3% of progress bar and 34%. We thought it was failed, but it was actually running. It was about 5~8 minutes… hung.

13. Successfully upgraded

14. Click "OK"

15. Upgrading ESXi 4.0 License

Your ESXi 3.5 has been upgraded with ESXi4.0, but it is under evaluation stage. ESXi3.5 license won’t be reused for ESXi4.0 host.

Execute VMware vSphere Client. Use same login and password of administrator

16. VMware Evaluation Notice

As long as you are login your ESXi 4.0 at first, you will got below license information.
Your ESXi 3.5 license is not valid anymore.

17. Updating ESXi 4.0 License

Click "Edit"

18. Assign License

Put a new license key that obtained when you registered account on VMware website. If you forget the license, go to the website again and re-register or login and copy and paste.