The familiar yellow and grey ESXi installer boot screen appeared. Loading izlip... Loading vmkernel...

Go to and select VMware Cloud Foundation (or vSphere). Filter for Version 6.5 . Look for the Custom ISOs tab.

: Finding the download can be cumbersome due to the transition of assets to the Broadcom Support Portal following their acquisition of VMware. Performance & User Experience VMware ESXi Images for HPE Servers | HPE EUROPE

Understanding the components helps you appreciate why you should not use the vanilla VMware ISO.

Elias was the Lead Systems Engineer for a mid-sized logistics company, and he had been tasked with a "simple" refresh: deploy three new hosts for the VMware ESXi environment. The project timeline was tight—management wanted the new cluster online by Friday.