PowerCLI 13.4 and PowerCLI 9.0 incompatibility with Python 3.12 on Windows

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• On a Windows system, Python 3.12 unparses paths with colons into ///// instead of ///. 
• This causes certain checks to fail and not work as expected
• Due to this export of ESXi image as a zip bundle using PowerCLI 13.4 fails

Environment

• VMware PowerCLI 13.4 with Python 3.12 on Windows
• VCF PowerCLI 9.0 with Python 3.12 on Windows
• PowerCLI ImageBuilder

Resolution

• Use another Python version (3.11 is preferable) OR use PowerCLI version 13.3 which has the workaround for the python 3.12 issue
• This issue also affects VCF PowerCLI 9.0 and is due to be fixed with VCF PowerCLI 9.1

Additional Information

The following configurations have been tested and shown to succeed in a lab environment. Note there are likely other configurations that will also succeed. If the below do not meet your requirements it is worth it to test other variations of Python 3.7 through Python 3.12:

• Windows Server 2022, Python 3.11.9, VCF PowerCLI 9 and Powershell 5.1.20348.859
• Windows 10 Enterprise, Python 3.10.11 on , VCF PowerCLI 9