Can VUM be used to upgrade hosts that require additional drivers not included with ESXi?

Using VMware Update Manager (VUM) to upgrade hosts that require additional drivers not included with ESXi is not feasible, making the statement false. VUM is specifically designed to apply patches and updates to existing ESXi installations, but it operates within the confines of the components and drivers that are integrated within the ESXi image itself.

When upgrading hosts, any specific hardware drivers that are necessary for that host must be included in the ESXi installation image. If a host requires additional drivers beyond those provided, VUM will not accommodate the integration of these external drivers during the upgrade. This means that the management of such driver dependencies falls outside the functionality of VUM, which primarily handles VMware's own updates. In situations where additional drivers are required, administrators typically need to create a custom ESXi image that includes those drivers and use a different method to deploy this customized version rather than relying on VUM for the upgrade process.

Thus, the nature of how VUM operates with respect to ESXi driver requirements makes the answer clearly false.