The good thing is currently we are on version 19.

You probably never see a VM with version 7.

As Mildur said, the Hardware version in vsphere, is the Virtual Hardware version that the virtual machines can use, like the “real hardware” revisions and versions.

@Gopal Singh

Each vsphere version brings a new hardware version for the VMs. It defines what hardware features can the vm use.

You can read more about it here:

Virtual Machine Hardware Versions

Hardware Features Available with Virtual Machine Compatibility Settings