Download the required patch depot file from https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/patch

• Select product as ESXi embedded and installable
• Best option is to specify build number in the search fields and search

Upload it to the ESXi host machine using the storage browser or a shared NFS export (Linux-ISOs) Activate the SSH service and log in with ssh and the root password.

We can check profiles present in the offline bundle using:

esxcli software sources profile list --depot=/vmfs/volumes/Linux\ ISOs/VMware-ESXi-7.0U3o-22348816-depot.zip
#Name                            Vendor        Acceptance Level  Creation Time        Modification Time
#------------------------------  ------------  ----------------  -------------------  -----------------
#[...]
#ESXi-7.0U3o-22348816-standard   VMware, Inc.  PartnerSupported  2023-09-21T00:00:00  2023-09-21T00:00:00

Then we can update to specific profile using:

esxcli system maintenanceMode set --enable true
esxcli software profile update --depot=/vmfs/volumes/Linux\ ISOs/VMware-ESXi-7.0U3o-22348816-depot.zip --profile=ESXi-7.0U3o-22348816-standard
# this most probably will ask for a reboot
reboot

Other profiles are for installing only the necessary security updates nothing more. After the reboot we can check the version with:

esxcli software baseimage get

The UI might only state that the installed version was (Updated). Exit maintenance mod (e. g. using the UI)