Comments on: Migrating from VirtualBox to VMware

By: Mhamed

Mhamed — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 11:31:49 +0000

@Kane Freehold
For converting VirtualBox Windows machines to VMware, VMware’s Converter (http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/ )

this do not support vdi files !!!

By: Nick Seth-Smith

Nick Seth-Smith — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 19:59:23 +0000

Thanks for the great instructions – worked like a champ for me. I was migrating a WIndows XP Pro guest OS and made one small change – disk adaptor type of ide instead of buslogic. As a result I was able to boot the OS under VMWare immediately; albeit it went through several boot cycles installing drivers for the new hardware and also required re-activation at M$ due to significant hardware change.

I booted the new OS using the free VMWare Player. Having created an empty VMWare image I edited the .vmx definition file to point to my freshly minted copy of the VirtualBox image and away we went.

By: Kane Freehold

Kane Freehold — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 20:56:19 +0000

For converting VirtualBox Windows machines to VMware, VMware’s Converter (http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/ ) has worked seamlessly for me. I have used it to convert both physical PCs and VirtualBox PCs to VMware VMDK. By default it also makes all the changes needed to boot right up in a new VMware guest machine. Only additional work was to install VMware tools, and reboot. No need for a Windows reinstall or update.

Current version of VMware Converter Standalone is 4.0.0 . I am using VMware Fusion 2.0 on Mac OS X 10.5.6. My converted guests were all WinXP, SP3. They were converted from VirtualBox 2.1.4 on Mac OS X 10.5.6.

Note that the converter only works on Windows OS, though, so if you’re converting a Linux or other OS, it won’t help.

By: Anatoli Arkhipenko

Anatoli Arkhipenko — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 16:55:38 +0000

and now without lees-than and more-than brackets:

1. Convert VDI to VMDK using: VBoxManage clonehd vdi_file vmdk_file -formal VMDK
2. Create a VM in VMServer similar to the the settings of your VirtualBox one, but without HDD
Unfortunately in may case the VMDK disk created by VBox did not work, BUT!
3. Convert VBox VMDK file to VMSeerver VMDK file: vmware-vdiskmanager -r vbox_vmdk_file -t 0 new_vmdk_file
4. Put the new_vmdk_file into the VMWare directory and add HDD to your newly created VM using existing image.

By: Anatoli Arkhipenko

Anatoli Arkhipenko — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 16:52:58 +0000

Hi,
I was trying to do the same migration from VBox 2.1.6 to VMServer 2.0.
vditool is no longer included into VBox distro, BUT! there is even easier way now:

1. Convert VDI to VMDK using: VBoxManage clonehd -formal VMDK
2. Create a VM in VMServer similar to the the settings of your VirtualBox one, but without HDD
Unfortunately in may case the VMDK disk created by VBox did not work, BUT!
3. Convert VBox VMDK file to VMSeerver VMDK file: vmware-vdiskmanager -r -t 0
4. Put the into the VMWare directory and add HDD to your newly created VM using existing image.

Worked like charm for both Ubuntu and Win XP images. Win XP started without repair install, found a s…load of new hardware and works after a reboot!
Dont’ forget to install VMware tools, of course!

Happy Virtualization!

By: Marcelo Oliveira

Marcelo Oliveira — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 20:23:14 +0000

Tks.

I didn’t try any of this. (I’m searching how to migrate a virtualbox VM to another pc)… But according to http://www.xgrr.de/wordpress/2008/02/25/convert-virtualbox-vdi-to-vmware-vmdk the second part colud be easier…using qemu.

Cheers.

By: Frank N

Frank N — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 02:59:20 +0000

Found your blog helpful and well thought out – so I figured I should share. I might be missing something – as I’m only a VirtualBox user and not an expert:
Although I could install XP64 on VirtualBox 2.1.4, I’m limited to only running one 64bit VirtualBox at a time… Once I launch a 64bit VirtualBox any additional attempts to run ANY VirtualBox results in a dialog box that ‘VT-x’ is already in use and stops the second instance – even regular 32-bit VirtualBox’s cannot run if 64 is running. I have VT-x disabled in the 32-bit boxes – and can run several of those at a time. And 64 wont run if a 32 is running. I’m now in the process of installing VMWare yet again.

By: Dossy Shiobara

Dossy Shiobara — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:09:13 +0000

Kenneth: Thanks for the update! Indeed, VirtualBox 2.1 looks really promising and I might give it a try. Gotta love The Inquirer: “[...] the open sauce VirtualBox project [...]” LOL!

By: Dr. Kenneth Noisewater

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 20:25:05 +0000

According to Sun and The Inq, VBox supports 32 and 64-bit guests? Apparently it also supports 64-bit guests on 32-bit hosts as well as OpenGL acceleration and VMDK/VHD support.. Actually, at least according to the changelog, they've pretty much closed the gap on VMware...

By: Dossy Shiobara

Dossy Shiobara — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 05:14:17 +0000

Adam: Great question – from what I recall having done something similar, deleting all snapshots will leave the current state, not revert you to the pre-snapshots state. However, if you’re paranoid, make a duplicate of your guest VM and delete the snapshot in that copy and see what happens. In other words: make a backup of your guest before deleting the snapshot.