VMWare ESXi (VSphere) - How to Downgrade VM Hardware (example 7U3 to 6.7)

Upgrading the hardware on a VM is easy just rigth click on the mouse and chose "Upgrade VM Compatibility".

The inverse, which downgrading VM Hardware, there is no official way of doing it.

To downgrade from ESXI 7U3 to 6.7 I did it like this (should work for other versions):

• Enable SSH on ESXI7

• WinSCP to ESXI7

• Clone the .vmx to save it before changing it

• Change original .vmx to ESXI 6.7 (hardware version 14):

            virtualHW.version = "14"

            You can find other harware versions at:

            https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article?legacyId=1003746

                VMware products and their virtual hardware version

• Unregister the VM

• Register VM using the modified .vmx