VMware ESX 3.x always routes the NMI to the service console and configuring options in the service console is the only mechanism to trigger a purple diagnostic screen on NMI under ESX 3.x. VMware ESX 4.x can be configured to handle the NMI in the VMkernel or to route it to the service console. This configuration is not applicable to ESXi. For ESXi, use the preceding VMkernel method.