You can use vSphere Lifecycle Manager to upgrade virtual machine hardware and the VMware Tools version of a virtual machine.

Whether you perform an upgrade of the virtual machine hardware version or the VMware Tools version, the upgrade is a multi-stage process.

  1. You check the status of individual virtual machines or a container object.

    vSphere Lifecycle Manager checks the status of a virtual machine against the latest virtual machine hardware version supported by the host on which the virtual machine runs. Similarly, vSphere Lifecycle Manager checks the status of the virtual machine against the latest VMware Tools version supported by the host on which the virtual machine runs.

    For more information about checking virtual machine status, see Checking the Status of Virtual Machines.

  2. You review the status of the scanned virtual machines.
  3. You upgrade the virtual machine to match the host where it resides.

    With vSphere Lifecycle Manager, you can upgrade the virtual machine hardware version and the VMware Tools version that a virtual machine has. You can use vSphere Lifecycle Manager to upgrade the virtual machine hardware version to the latest hardware version, vmx-19, and to the latest VMware Tools version on the hosts.

    For more information about upgrading virtual machines, see Upgrading Virtual Machines.