Kyle Gleed, Sr. Technical Marketing Manager, VMware
I was recently looking for a quick way to verify that all my VMs have been updated with the latest versions of tools and virtual hardware. I was thinking I would need to use a PowerCLI or vCLI script to do this, but was pleasantly surprised when I discovered that I can easily get this info from the vSphere client.
Simply select your data center or cluster and go to the "Virtual Machines" tab. Here you can customize the columns that are displayed by right clicking on any of the column headings. From the list of available options select "VM Version" and VMware Tools Version Status".
Once the new columns were added I was able to drag and drop the column headings to change the display order, making it possible to see the VM name, virtual hardware version, and VMware Tools version in one view without having to use the horizontal scroll bar.
End result is just want I needed, a list of my VMs along with the virtual hardware and VMware Tools versions – and no scripting was required!
Nice post.
does it let you upgrade all machines from this location ? – in one click and NOT one by one ?
10x
Haim
Is there a way to find out the tools installed are 32 bit or 64 bit from powercli?
I wish there was a way to find Hardware Version locally on the guest with a DOS shell command for older windows versions or in the registry. Then each of my systems could include Virtual Hardware Version when it updates it Inventory in the DB.