About Virtual-to-Virtual Machine Conversions

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In Virtual Machine Manager (VMM), a virtual-to-virtual machine conversion (V2V conversion) is the process by which a virtual machine that is currently not managed by Virtual Machine Manager is converted to a Virtual Server-based virtual machine in a Virtual Machine Manager environment. Currently, Virtual Machine Manager supports converting a VMware® Server–based virtual machine to an analogous Virtual Server–based virtual machine deployed on a host managed by Virtual Machine Manager.

A V2V conversion requires that the host on which the new virtual machine is deployed is a computer running Virtual Server R2 SP1 or later. In Virtual Machine Manager, which is built on and works with Virtual Server technology, a host is a physical computer on which the Virtual Machine Manager agent software is installed (in addition to Virtual Server software) and that serves as a host on which you can deploy one or more virtual machines.

The source for a V2V conversion of a VMware virtual machine performed by the Convert Virtual Machine Wizard consists of a set of the following files that you must store in the Virtual Machine Manager library:

  • A .vmx file, which is a VMware virtual machine configuration file. A .vmx file is the text file that describes the properties and structure of a virtual machine, including name, memory, disk assignments, network parameters, and so on.
  • One or more .vmdk files, which are not passed directly as input to the wizard but are listed in the .vmx file. A .vmdk file is a VMware virtual hard disk that contains the virtual machine's guest operating system, applications, and data. Supported VMWare virtual hard disk formats include the following:
    • monolithicSparse
    • monolithicFlat
    • vmfs
    • twoGbMaxExtentSparse
    • twoGbMaxExtentFlat

During the conversion process, the Convert Virtual Machine Wizard converts the .vmdk files to .vhd files and makes the operating system on the virtual machine compatible with Microsoft virtualization technologies. The virtual machine created by the wizard matches VMware virtual machine properties, including name, description, memory, and disk-to-bus assignment.

The Convert Virtual Machine Wizard supports the conversion of VMware virtual machines that are running any of the following guest operating systems:

  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Server with Service Pack 4 (SP4) or later
  • Windows Server 2003 SP1 or later
  • Windows XP SP1 or later

If you use the Convert Virtual Machine Wizard to convert a VMWare-based virtual machine running any operating system not in the preceding list, the virtual machine might not start up or might not function correctly. To ensure a successful conversion, you must first modify the guest operating system to one of the listed supported operating systems.

Some conversions of a VMWare-based virtual machine whose guest operating system is Windows might require that additional system files and drivers be added to the internal cache. In this case, when you run the Convert Virtual Machine Wizard, if additional files or drivers are required, do the following:

  • Use information provided in an error message that appears when you run the wizard to identify what updates or drivers are required.
  • Obtain a copy of those update or driver files and copy the files to the Patch Import directory on the Virtual Machine Manager server (the default path is <C>:\Program Files\Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007\Patch Import).
  • Run the Add-Patch cmdlet to extract those patches and populate the patch cache.
  • Run the Convert Virtual Machine Wizard again (or use the New-V2V cmdlet).

To learn more about the Virtual Machine Manager command shell, see the Virtual Machine Manager Scripting Guide at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink?LinkID=99091.

See Also

Concepts

About Virtual Machines
How to Convert a Virtual Machine to a VMM Virtual Machine
How to Create a Virtual Machine

Other Resources

How to Convert a Physical Server to a Virtual Machine