Renew ESX(i) evaluation period

60 days trial period offered by the VMware for all its products is, in my opinion, to short to completely test and assess new platforms.

Below you will find simple procedure to reset the evaluation period without reinstalling the host.
It is even possible to do it with running VMs but of course it isn't the recommended way..:)


For ESX host:

1. Login through SSH to the host's service console 
2. su - and enter the root password
3. go to /etc/vmware
4. rm -r vmware.lic and answer the prompt with y
5. rm -r licence.cfg  and answer the prompt with y 
6. Restart the vpxa agent: service vmware-vpxa restart

Procedure for the ESXi host is almost identical and its greatly described here.

As I tested those procedures works for every 4.x or 5.0 hosts.