With vSphere Web Client (Flash based) the Edit button is missing.
With vSphere Client (HTML5 based) the Edit button is greyed-out and when hovered-over gets a red forbidden symbol over it
It can be edited with the built-in webserver under Autostart, but that interface is, let's say, cumbersome.
This is a single Essentials host, not a cluster, so not HA, so that's not preventing it.
It used to work last week when it was 5.5U3, and the configuration is still set, but can't be edited.
Under Permissions every line has Administrator role.
Why is VM Startup / Shutdown configuration disabled?