You can upgrade the virtual hardware version for a virtual machine. Later virtual hardware versions support more features.

You cannot downgrade the hardware version of the virtual machines in a vApp.

VMware Cloud Director supports hardware versions depending on the backing vSphere resources. The supported hardware version depends on the latest supported virtual hardware version in the backing Provider VDC. An Organization Administrator or a System Administrator can set the hardware version to an earlier than the latest supported version by the underlying hardware. The VMware Cloud Director tenant portal dynamically sets the list of selectable virtual hardware versions based on the backing hardware of the Organization or Provider VDC.

For information about the hardware features available with virtual machine compatibility settings, see vSphere Virtual Machine Administration.

For information about the VMware products and their virtual hardware version, see https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1003746.

Prerequisites

  • Stop the virtual machine or the vApp that contains the virtual machine.
  • Verify that the latest version of VMware Tools is installed on the virtual machine.

Procedure

  1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the VDC you want to explore and from the secondary left panel, select Virtual Machines.
  2. Click Card Icon to view the list in a card view and, optionally, arrange the list of VMs from the Sort by drop-down menu.
  3. From the Actions menu of the virtual machine you want to upgrade, select Upgrade Virtual Hardware Version.
  4. Click OK.

Results

The virtual machine is upgraded to the latest version.