• Install VMware ESXi on an USB key
• DCUI console presentation

5. Add the network driver in the ISO of VMware ESXi 6.5.0

To easily add the desired network driver in the ISO of VMware ESXi 6.5.0, we suggest you use the "ESXi Customizer 2.7.2" graphical tool.
The main advantage of this tool is that it offers a graphical interface and it's very easy to use.

On the other hand, the main drawback is that this graphic version is no longer maintained.
Indeed, its author has developed a new tool called "ESXi-Customizer-PS" which is now based on PowerShell.

Warning : this tool doesn't work on Windows 10. The latest version supported by this tool is Windows 8.1.
If necessary, create a virtual machine with an older version of Windows to use it.

To begin, unzip the network driver downloaded previously.

In the folder that appears, you will find 2 versions of this driver :

• an offline bundle in ZIP format.
• the network driver in VIB (vSphere Installation Bundle) format

Launch the "ESXi-Customizer-v2.7.2.exe" file downloaded previously.

A "7-Zip self-extracting archive" window will appear.
Click on Extract.

By default, an "ESXi-Customizer-v2.7.2" folder will be created next to the exe file you just launched.
Go into this folder and run the "ESXi-Customizer.cmd" file.

A "ESXi-Customizer v2.7.2" black window appears with text.
You don't need to pay attention to it.

A few seconds later, an "ESXi-Customizer" window with a graphical interface will appear.
Click on the 1st "Browse" button to select the VMware ESXi ISO file.

Select the ISO file for the version of VMware ESXi you were trying to install.
In our case, we select our "VMware-VMvisor-Installer-201701001-4887370.x86_64.iso" file which corresponds to VMware ESXi 6.5.0.

Then, click on the 2nd "Browse" button to select the network driver to add to this ISO file.

For adding the network driver, you have 2 possibilities.
The 1st possibility is to select "VIB files (*.vib)" in the list at the bottom right, then select the ".vib" file of your network driver.

The 2nd possibility is to select "Offline bundles (*.zip)" in the list at the bottom right, then select the "...-offline_bundle-xxxxxxx.zip" file from your network driver.
Don't worry, the result will be the same.

Then, uncheck the "Enable automatic update check (required working Internet connection)" box and click on "Run".

In our case, the "ESXi-Customizer" tool tells us that the driver we are trying to install will replace an older version that was present in this ISO file.
So, we click "Yes" to replace it.
Anyway, the old version of this driver didn't support our network adapter since it was not detected before.

After adding the driver to the VMware ESXi ISO file, the "All done - the custom ISO file was created as ... ESXi-5.x-Custom.iso" message will appear.
Don't pay attention to the name of the file, in our case it's VMware ESXi 6.5.0 and not its 5.x version.

The black window simply allows you to see the history of the steps that have occurred and is therefore only useful in the event of a problem.
However, it will disappear automatically when you close the window above.

Our ISO file was created by default in our "Documents" folder.

6. Install VMware ESXi 6.5.0 with custom ISO file

Now, let's move on to the installation of VMware ESXi 6.5.0 thanks to our new ISO file in which we have added the network driver required for our network adapter integrated into our motherboard.
The 1st VMware ESXi 6.5.0 loading screen appears as before.

Then, the VMware ESXi 6.5.0 installer appears.
Therefore, the "No Network Adapters" error didn't occur.

Select the disk where you want to install VMware ESXi.

Confirm the installation of VMware ESXi 6.5.0.

Wait while it's installed.

The installation was completed successfully.

The computer restarts and VMware ESXi starts.

As you can see, VMware ESXi 6.5.0 is now installed on our computer, although it didn't work before.

7. Verifying the installation of VMware ESXi 6.5.0

We access the web interface of our VMware ESXi hypervisor and we can see that it is indeed version "6.5.0".

In the "Configuration" section of your hypervisor, you will see that the tool used has added information in the "Image profile" box : ESXi-Customizer ...

If we go to the section "Networking -> Physical NICs", we can see that VMware ESXi correctly detects our 2 network ports and that the driver used is "ixgbe".

If we go to "Host -> Manage -> Hardware -> PCI Devices", we can see that the network adapter detected by VMware ESXi is indeed : Intel(R) Ethernet Controller 10G X550T.