Is it a bad idea to install the VMware Tools 5.1 latest on RHEL guests running on VMware ESXI 4.1?

Question

We are planning to install a VMware Tools RPM package on 50+ virtual machines running RHEL.

• Does the version of VMware Tools matter? The standard documented method to install VMware Tools is using the perl script.
• Is it better to install a package matching the host version or just the latest version of VMware Tools?
• Does using RPM to install VMWare Tools have disadvantages?
• Do I have to do something to VMWare Tools after I update the ESX hosts to 5.1 and the virtual machine to a newer hardware version?

I wonder which one of these I should use:

• http://packages.vmware.com/tools/esx/5.1latest/rhel6/x86_64/
• http://packages.vmware.com/tools/esx/4.1latest/rhel6/

Answer 1

Is it a bad idea to install the VMware Tools 5.1 latest on RHEL guests running on VMware ESXI 4.1?

No, they're backwardly compatible, that said try really hard to get to up 5.1 or 5.5 if you can, it's worth the effort.