May 21st, 2009 
Kiwi Si 
VMware VI3 is dead, long live vSphere ! Well, at least you can’t place an order for VI3 anymore… The eventful day is finally upon us and after speculation that vSphere wouldn’t ship for another month or so after being made available for order today (21st May) – here it is !
A 60 day trial of vSphere including ESX 4.0 can be downloaded from VMware’s site here. After receiving your activation email you’ll be able to download the usual two flavours of ESX – the full fat ESX 4.0 (build 164009) complete with Service Console or the semi-skimmed version, ESXi 4.0(build 164009) without the Service Console. vCenter Server (build 162902) and some of the additional available optional products (eg: Data Recovery) can also be downloaded for trial.
The ESXi 4.0 version, as with the previous version (3.5) of ESXi, contains the necessary ‘dd’ file to make a bootable USB stick/pen drive version as outlined in my article here.
Once you have either created a VMware site user account and have logged in to the ‘vSphere Evaluation Centre’ then you will have the opportunity to watch or download some well prepared videos and guides made available by VMware specifically for ESX 4.0, vSphere and a range of the other features found in this new release:
![captured_Image.png[5]](http://www.techhead.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/captured-imagepng56.jpg "captured_Image.png[5]")
So, what’s stopping you? Go download the trial now and install it on your test lab .. 
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Posted in 
My name is Simon Seagrave and I am a London (UK) based Technical Architect. 
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Is the physical serial port still greyed out when creating a new vm with vsphere ?
[Reply]
Kiwi Si Reply:
May 21st, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Hi Matt,
Do you mean the connect to physical port option?
If so here’s the answer (from ESX 4.0):
Hope this helps,
Si
[Reply]
Matt Reply:
May 21st, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Thanks for checking that. Really dissapointed though, i looked in the new documentation and it clearly says you can connect a physical serial port. Wonder why they would leave it in but greyed out. Page 158 of the Sys Admin guide.
[Reply]
Thanks for the articles on Installing 3i on an ML115G5. It made up my mind to buy one.
Just downloaded 4i today and whacked that on via the Host update utility. Worked straight away. No issues. I use a perc 5i with 3 x WD500 Sata discs.
Quick question. What does the USB controller option in the guest settings allow you to do ? It doesn’t seem to work with an external usb drive ? Also, it seemed to break the network connection on my test XP box ??? Hmmm. had to remove the USB Controller to get the network to work again.
Any idea’s on the issue or what the USB controller allows you to do ?
Cheers
Phil
[Reply]
Looks like vSphere doesn’t work with Windows 7
[Reply]
You said ESX4i could be set on a USB like ESX3i, but the infrastructure is totally different then 3i.
How did you managed to create a bootable USB version?
Thanks,
Dave
[Reply]
FillDee Reply:
May 22nd, 2009 at 11:28 am
Dave,
I haven’t made an ESX4i USB key yet, but it you make a 3i one and then boot your server from that and use the new Host Update Utility (option to install during new vShpere client install), it upgrades just fine.
Phil
[Reply]
Thanks for the answer Phil,
But I found the solution…. VMWare changed the location of the VMWare-VMVisor-big-164009-x86_64.dd.bz2 file within the ISO. This file is now located in the image.tgz file instead of install.tgz. For the rest building a Bootable USB is indeed the same.
Thanks for the help,
Dave
[Reply]
FillDee Reply:
May 22nd, 2009 at 11:51 am
Yeah, found that after I posted my reply.
VMWare like to put there compressed files in another in another in another …… etc don’t they
[Reply]
Kiwi Si Reply:
May 22nd, 2009 at 11:54 am
Hi there,
I have a brief post drafted up (just need to finishing tweaking it) that outlines how to create a bootable ESXi 4.0 USB pen drive as I think the change in ‘dd’ file location will catch a few people out. I had to have a hunt around for it initially.
Thanks – and any suggestions for topics or the site in general always welcome.
Si
[Reply]
FillDee Reply:
May 22nd, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Have you any idea what the USB Controller virtual device allows you to do ? I was hoping for full speed USB support for the VM’s by plugging into the host USB port, but no such luck
[Reply]