How To Upgrade the BIOS of a VMware Virtual Machine?
Points of My Scenario 1. I am admin for our VMware infrastructure: vCenter Server 5.5 on ESXi 5.5 cluster 2. Microsoft has asked me to update the BIOS for one of the Windows VMs - not the ESXi host 3. I upgraded the hardware version of the VM (from version 8 to version 9) 4. This hardware version upgrade did not change the BIOS version of the VM (Note: I used Windows' built-in msinfo32 to get BIOS version). 5. Info: The VM's "BIOS version/Date" - as reported by msinfo32.exe - is "Phoenix Technologies LTD 6.00 9/17/2015"
QUESTION: How do I upgrade the BIOS of a Windows VM (Server 2012 R2) hosted by an ESXi 5.5 server?
VirtualizationWindows OSVMwareHardware
Last Comment
Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)
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Many thanks....This is excellent information, Andrew!
Microsoft believes that regular OS crashes on the VM are due to either the VM's BIOS or VMware drivers needing upgrade.
We already upgraded the VMware Tools to handle the drivers issue. But it was to no avail.
I'll wait to hear from you about 6.7u3.
Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)
I can appreciate Microsoft's position, you are very out of date, in terms of host and ESXi 6.0 goes out of support this year in March, so that will just leave 6.5 and 6.7 in support.
Until the next version......(very soon!)
Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)
6.7U3 - quite an update!
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rwheeler23
waltforbes
ASKER
Oh man! Many thanks for all the insights, Andrew. I shall now close this case.
waltforbes
ASKER
This is exactly what I need to know!
Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)
No problems. You could build an ESXi 6.7 server for FREE, to prove a point to Microsoft..... if it still crashes its not the BIOS!
Microsoft believes that regular OS crashes on the VM are due to either the VM's BIOS or VMware drivers needing upgrade.
We already upgraded the VMware Tools to handle the drivers issue. But it was to no avail.
I'll wait to hear from you about 6.7u3.