In the ESXi 5 console, how to press the <+> and <-> keys on the bios screens without the num part of the keyboard?

Question

Sometimes we open vSphere from a restricted terminal that only has a basic ascii keyboard and f1-f12 and a mouse but is missing the additional numeric block on the right side of a big keybaord part and also there is no numlock state.

In the bios screen of a vm you have to press num-<+> or num-<-> to move the boot order of devices.

As we don't have these keys, how can we do it?

The <+> and <-> keys on the normal keyboard do not seem to work (although everything else works).

Answer 1

According to the help screen in the bios (F1), F5 should act like - and F6 should act like +. Unfortunately, this seems to be a lie - it works in normal item selection, but not in the boot order selection; only +/- seem to do anything.

Your only recourse may be to get a keyboard with working - and = keys.