Upgrade Windows Server 2003 in a VM to a later OS

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Windows Server 2003 support is ending July 14, 2015. This KB article guides you to upgrade the Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2008 within a VM.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 5.5
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.1

Resolution

Upgrade Procedure

Read the following Microsoft KB to make sure all the requirements are met before starting the upgrade: Supported paths for upgrading from Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2008

1. With VMware Tools installed, upgrade the Guest OS

Note: You might have to reboot the Guest OS several times during the upgrade

1. Manually edit the vmx configuration file, change the guest OS parameters
   • For a 64-bit OS if vmx config file has one of the following three parameters,change the parameter guestOS = "longhorn-64"
     • winNetEnterprise-64
     • winNetDatacenter-64
     • winNetStandard-64
   • For a 32-bit OS if vmx config file has one of the following three parameters, change the parameter guestOS = "longhorn"
     • winNetEnterprise
     • winNetDatacenter
     • winNetStandard
     • winNetWeb
     • winNetBusiness

1. Upgrade or reinstall VMware Tools and reboot the VM.

Expected behavior during upgrade

• To configure disks to use VMware Paravirtual SCSI (PVSCSI) adapters, see Configuring disks to use VMware Paravirtual SCSI (PVSCSI) adapters (1010398)
• vmxnet3 might fail but it will work after reinstalling VMware Tools
• Video driver will switch to WDDM after increasing video memory and reinstalling VMware Tools. For more details, see WDDM and XPDM graphics driver support with WDDM and XPDM graphics driver support with ESX, ESXi, Workstation and Fusion (1016770)