A virtual machine must have a name that is unique within the folder where the virtual machine is located. If you move a virtual machine to a different datastore folder or host that has an existing virtual machine of the same name, you must change the virtual machine's name to keep it unique.

When you change the name of a virtual machine, you change the name used to identify the virtual machine in the vCenter Server inventory. This action does not change the name used as the computer name by the guest operating system.

The virtual machine name also determines the name of the virtual machine files and folder on the disk. For example, if you name the virtual machine win8, the virtual machine files are named win8.vmx, win8.vmdk, win8.nvram, and so on. If you change the virtual machine name, the names of the files on the datastore do not change.

Note: Migration with Storage vMotion changes the virtual machine filenames on the destination datastore to match the inventory name of the virtual machine. The migration renames all virtual disk, configuration, snapshot, and .nvram files. If the new names exceed the maximum filename length, the migration does not succeed.

Procedure

  1. Right-click a virtual machine in the inventory and select Edit Settings.
  2. Click the VM Options tab and expand General Options.
  3. Delete the existing name and enter a new name for the virtual machine in the VM Name text box.
  4. Click OK.