Introduction
————
Instead of downloading ESX 3 patches individually this application automatically batch downloads patches for you and can be used repeatedly to maintain your local patch repository.

This utility is designed for Windows XP, Vista and Server 2003 but may work on other Windows Operating Systems.

No support is provided for the utility but we will endeavour to reply to email requests for assistance.

Instructions
————

1. Unzip all the zip file contents in to a folder on your PC

2. Open an internet browser and navigate to http://www.vmware.com/download/vi/vi3_patches.html#c4310

3. Select the patches you want to download by selecting the text and copying it to your clipboard, eg: Ctrl + C. You can select all the patches if you want, or just some of them. You don’t need to be particular about the tidying up any uneeded text as the application filters the patch names to correctly identify them.

4. Once you have made you selection, paste the selection in to the textfile.txt file which is already included.

Note: the textfile provided is current to 12 April 2007 for all VMware ESX 3.0.1 patches and will work correctly as it is.

5. Save the file, and then double-click the VIPatchDownloader-v100.vbs file to start downloading your patches (ensure you have an internet connection before you start). You will be prompted where you wish to place the patches and the application will create a new folder called ‘VIPatches’. Make sure you have sufficient rights to create files in the destination location that you choose. A progress window will appear but it may take a few moments to initialise after you’ve selected the destination so please be patient. Patches are downloaded sequentially.

Note: closing the progress window part way through patch downloading will not stop the application. It will continue to complete the selected downloads unless you end the wscript.exe process through Windows Task Manager and close any open download screens.

6. Once the downloads are complete the progress window will advise and then close after 5 seconds.

HTTP Proxy
———-
To use wget through a proxy you must first create an environment variable. Type the following at the Windows command prompt:

set http_proxy=http://proxy.example.com:8080

Replace proxy.example.com with your actual proxy server and replace 8080 with your actual proxy server port.

Download het script hier: http://www.xtravirt.com/

Hier zie je het script in actie:

esxpatchdownloadscript.gif

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2 thoughts on “Script: VMware ESX3 Patch downloader

  1. Hi Thanks for the script, its does a great job! I have two suggestions to make it better;

    1) add a numbering to the patches, as the filename order is not the order the patches should be applied.
    2) include automatic checksum to ensure that the download is correct. Or this may be best done once the patches are copied to the ESX host?

    Thanks again, its a time saver!

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