Check Your vCenter & ESXi Versions in Seconds (PowerCLI One-Liner Guide)

If you need a quick, reliable way to see which vCenter build you’re on and what versions your ESXi hosts are running, this post is for you. Below is a copy-paste PowerCLI snippet that connects to vCenter, prints the vCenter build, lists every ESXi host with its version/build, and then cleanly disconnects.

Source: I’ve published this as a simple script here:

https://github.com/AngrySysOps/scripts/blob/main/vCenter_And_ESXi_versions.ps1

Prerequisites

Windows PowerShell (or PowerShell 7)
VMware PowerCLI:
Open PowerShell as Administrator once and run:

Install-Module VMware.PowerCLI

Then, in your session:

Import-Module VMware.PowerCLI


Tip (certs): In lab/dev, if you hit certificate prompts, you can temporarily suppress them:

Set-PowerCLIConfiguration -InvalidCertificateAction Ignore -Confirm:$false

Example output (what “good” looks like)

--- vCenter Server Version ---
Name    : vcenter.angrysysops.com
Version : 8.0.3
Build   : 24022515

--- ESXi Host Versions ---
Name              Version Build
----              ------- -----
esx01.angrysysops.com   8.0.3   24022531
esx02.angrysysops.com   8.0.3   24022531
esx03.angrysysops.com   7.0.3   20328353

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Handy Variations

Only a specific cluster:

Get-Cluster "DEV-Cluster" | Get-VMHost | Select Name, Version, Build | Sort Name

Group hosts by version (quick compliance view):

Get-VMHost | Group-Object Version | Select Name, Count

Add product names (nice for reports):

Get-VMHost | Select Name,
@{N='Product';E={$_.ExtensionData.Config.Product.FullName}},
@{N='Version';E={$_.Version}},
@{N='Build';E={$_.Build}} | Format-Table -AutoSize

Troubleshooting (quick wins)

Cannot connect to vCenter
- Check reachability/ports (443), DNS, and credentials.
- Try FQDN and IP to rule out DNS issues.
PowerCLI not found
- Re-run Install-Module VMware.PowerCLI as Administrator.
- If behind a proxy, configure PowerShell’s proxy or install offline.
Certificate warnings
- Lab/dev: Set-PowerCLIConfiguration -InvalidCertificateAction Ignore -Confirm:$false
- Prod: install/chain the proper certs instead of ignoring.
Access denied / partial results
- Your vSphere role may lack Host.VIEW privileges. Try with an account that has at least Read-Only at vCenter level.

Note on a common error: If you previously tried something like
Get-View $si.Content.About and saw
“Cannot bind parameter ‘Id’… to type ManagedObjectReference”,
that’s because Get-View expects a MoRef, not the AboutInfo object.
The approach in this post uses DefaultVIServers and Get-VMHost, which is cleaner for version reporting.