ESX 3.5 U3 Scripted Install Improvement

For those of us that prefer to script our installs instead of creating hand crafted environments, you’ll be thrilled to see that VMware has addressed a pretty annoying bug that has existed in 3.5 regarding vSwitch creation. No more jumping through hoops to make vmnics active. From the release notes :

Network adapters lose bonding during scripted installation
The esxcfg-vswitch -L command now works as expected and with the same functionality as in 3.0.x.

During a scripted installation, the following two commands did not result in a bonded pair of active network adapters on virtual switch VS_VM1. Instead, vmnic3 became the active adapter and vmnic4 became the standby adapter.
esxcfg-vswitch -L vmnic3 VS_VM1
esxcfg-vswitch -L vmnic4 VS_VM1