OVA/OVF Templates and Older Versions of VMware ESXI

Recently ran into this issue which I feel is something that I should document, as it provides some additional details onto how to configure or modify an existing .ova or .ovf file which is the standard deployment template for ESXI/VMware.

Here was the issue:
- ESXI 5.5
- OVA required hardware type 8. Gave an error of  "Unsupported hardware version - vmx-8" when testing. Based on everything I was reading, it isn't supported.

So using the ovftool which can be found on VMware's Website (here) you can basically extract out the ova/ovf file into a directory, and then use it to modify the VMX file and then put it all back together.

Steps:
1. Download the application and install it.
2. Go to the directory where the ovftool is stored via cmd line (Typically C:\Programs Files\Vmware\ect..)
3. Issue the following command: ovftool
4. Then modify the .vmx file so that it contains now the hardware ID of 7 (or whatever you need set for your release).
5. Then issue another command from the same command prompt, but this time: ovftool
6. Now simply import your new ovf file that you want to import, and all is good.