Re: running out- of- date

Seem like it has been mentioned in the Release Note of 5.0

Release Note: vSphere 5.0 Release Notes

<snip>

• The VMware Tools system tray icon might incorrectly show the status as Out of date
  If a virtual machine is using VMware Tools that was installed with vSphere 4.x, the system tray icon in the guest operating system incorrectly shows the status as Out-of-date. In the vSphere 5.0 Client and vSphere Web Client, the Summary tab for the virtual machine shows the status as Out-of-date (OK. This version is supported on the existing host, but upgrade if new functionality does not work). VMware Tools installed with vSphere 4.x is supported and does not strictly require an upgrade for vSphere 5.0.Workarounds: In vSphere 5.0, use the Summary tab for the virtual machine in the vSphere Client or the vSphere Web Client to determine the status of VMware Tools. If the status is Out-of-date and you do not want to upgrade, you can use the following settings to disable the upgrade prompts and warning icon in the guest operating system:
  • If the virtual machine is set to automatically upgrade VMware Tools but you want the virtual machine to remain at the lowest supported version, set the following property as an advanced configuration parameter: set tools.supportedOld.autoupgrade toFALSE. This setting also disables the exclamation point icon in the guest, which indicates that VMware Tools is unsupported.
  • If VMware Tools is out of date and you want to disable the exclamation mark icon that appears on the VMware Tools icon in the system tray, set the following property as an advanced configuration parameter: set tools.supportedOld.warn to FALSE.
• Neither of these settings affect the behavior of VMware Tools when the Summary tab shows the status as Unsupported or Error. In these situations, the exclamation mark icon appears and VMware Tools is automatically upgraded (if configured to do so), even when the advanced configuration settings are set to FALSE. You can set advanced configuration parameters either by editing the virtual machine's configuration file, .vmx or by using the vSphere client or the vSphere Web Client to edit the virtual machine settings. On theOptions tab, select Advanced > General, and click Configuration Parameters.

</snip>