Did you reboot your VMWare ESX/ESXi server and find out none of your VMs are running? Chances are you never set them to run automatically upon restart.

Here’s how to change that:

  1. Load the VMWare vSphere Client
  2. Connect to your ESX/ESXi box or vCenter Server
  3. Select the ESX/ESXi host from the right panel
  4. Click on the Configuration tab
  5. Under Software select Virtual Machine Startup/Shutdown
  6. Click on the Properties… button located on the top right
  7. Select your VM and move it up or down into the correct order. For automatic simply move it up to Automatic or Manual Startup