VMware Hypervisor (ESXi) v5.1 and its respective version of the vSphere Client for Windows has been released to the public! I am in the middle of upgrading my VMware host to v5.1 as I type this article. Unfortunately, the VIclient installation still takes a good 10 minutes to finish. Also, upgrading ESXi from v5.0 Update 1 to v5.1 takes a good 20 minutes (at the minimum). But all grumblings aside this release resolves one key issue that, like many of you, have been experiencing for quite some time.
The ability to view the console on a Windows 8 computer with the VIclient has now been fixed. You no longer need to install VMware Workstation 8 or 9 as a workaround. Now, before you start upgrading your vSphere client, there are a few caveats:
- In order to use the new v5.1 VI client, you also need to upgrade your ESXi hosts to v5.1.
- After upgrading ESXi to v5.1, you need to also upgrade the VMware tools version on each virtual machine for best performance.
As always, be sure to read the as well as the ? PDF before jumping in head first.
-Joe
[What’s New In VMware ESXi 5.1](http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/products/vsphere/vmware-what-is-new-vsphere51.pdf)