It’s Official! ESXi 3.5 Update 2 is FREE and available for download
July 28th, 2008 | 
Author: 
VMware, following through on Paul Maritz’ promise from last week, officially announced today that ESXi is now available for free. The icing on this “virtual cake” turns out to be that the latest version, Update 2 released Friday 07.25, offers new features and functions than previously available.
Read the press release – VMware ESXi Hypervisor Now Free.
Get the download at www.vmware.com/products/esxi/.
Click the image to the right to go to VMware’s ESXi 3.5 web page to learn more.
Concentrating on the technical reaction and excitement from the news, here are some links from various posts I found interesting in the virtualization blogisphere.
Duncan over at Yellow-bricks.com has begun exploring some of the features and, as usual, has some helpful tips and pointers covering:
- ESX 3.5 U2 and HA error
- ESXi, pick it up for free now!
- New VCB feature
- Remote CLI Update!
- VSS Snapshots
Eric of NTPRO.NL offers educational information for getting started with ESXi
- VMware ESXi Online Training
- Getting Started with ESX Server 3i Installable
- Get a free license for VMware ESXi
Last but not least, Andrew at Dugie’s Pensieve promises what looks like to be series on using ESXi
Posted in 
Tags: 
Ok, I click the http://www.vmware.com/products/esxi/.link and it sends me to the VMware ESXi 4 & VMware Go download page, which shows it to be a free product. But when I clicked through got the license, downloaded the .iso, installed & registered, it says it's a 60-day trial… Am I doing something wrong here? The software must communicate with the mother ship somehow, because I've reinstalled and wiped & reinstalled, and get the same results. I don't want to get to the end of the 60-day trial and have a non-working installation.
I realize this is a slightly old post to be throwing a question in on; got here through a Google search and a link from another post (vmetc.com/2008/08/10/whats-the-difference-between-free-esxi-and-licensed-esxi/). I'll check around elsewhere to see if there's more info.
Thanks!
davintosh,
You have to apply the license that you received. I have not done it with
ESXi 4 yet, but in the past the license was shown on the registration page
and/or emailed to me. Have you tried that yet?
==============================
Rich Brambley
rbrambley@gmail.com
blogs: http://vmetc.com | http://www.gestaltit.com
twitter: @rbrambley
==============================
Ok, I click the http://www.vmware.com/products/esxi/.link and it sends me to the VMware ESXi 4 & VMware Go download page, which shows it to be a free product. But when I clicked through got the license, downloaded the .iso, installed & registered, it says it's a 60-day trial… Am I doing something wrong here? The software must communicate with the mother ship somehow, because I've reinstalled and wiped & reinstalled, and get the same results. I don't want to get to the end of the 60-day trial and have a non-working installation.
I realize this is a slightly old post to be throwing a question in on; got here through a Google search and a link from another post (vmetc.com/2008/08/10/whats-the-difference-between-free-esxi-and-licensed-esxi/). I'll check around elsewhere to see if there's more info.
Thanks!
davintosh,
You have to apply the license that you received. I have not done it with
ESXi 4 yet, but in the past the license was shown on the registration page
and/or emailed to me. Have you tried that yet?
==============================
Rich Brambley
rbrambley@gmail.com
blogs: http://vmetc.com | http://www.gestaltit.com
twitter: @rbrambley
==============================