Tag VMware Converter

Physical‑to‑Virtual (P2V) – Convert a Windows to VMware ESXi VM Using vCenter Converter Step‑by‑Step

by SinaOnline Virtualization Training

Hello everyone, in this video I will show you how to convert a Windows operating system installed on a physical server into a VMware ESXi virtual machine.

• Here is my ESXi environment.

• 10.2.7.11 is my ‘physical’ server. It’s not an actual physical machine — it’s a VM running on ESXi, but for demonstration purposes, you can think of it as a physical server. I don’t have a physical server in my test environment, so I’m using a VM to simulate one.

• 10.2.7.10 , This is the server I’ll be using as a proxy to convert the physical server into a virtual machine. I’ll install VMware Converter tools here, and then use them to carry out the conversion. The advantage of this method is that you don’t need to install anything on the source Windows server.

Click for download VMware Converter tools

• Now, let’s install VMware Converter tools on this server.

• Run as administrator.

• Next.

• Next.

• Here we have two options: Local Installation and Client-Server Installation.
Local Installation means the Converter will be installed and used directly on this machine.
Client-Server Installation allows you to install the Converter service here and control it remotely from another computer, which is great if you need to manage multiple conversions from one place.
If you want to convert another machine, you should choose the Client-Server option.

• Here we have two options: Local Installation and Client-Server Installation.
Local Installation installs everything on this computer, and you can only manage conversions from here.
Client-Server Installation lets you manage conversions from another computer by connecting to this one. This is useful if you want to control the process remotely or from a central location.
In our case, we want to convert another machine, so we’re choosing the Local Installation option.

• Next.

• Next.

• Install.

• Now, click Finish to launch the application.

• This is VMware Converter, a tool that lets you convert physical machines, VMware virtual machines, and Hyper-V virtual machines into VMware virtual machines.

• Now, let’s start converting our physical server into a virtual machine.

• Click ‘Convert Machine’.

• This is your source machine information. You need to enter the IP address and credentials of your source machine. The credentials entered here must have full permissions on the source machine.

• By clicking on ‘View Source Information’, this tool will install a small agent on the source machine to gather information and perform the tasks required to convert that machine into a virtual machine.

• As you can see, the agent is installed temporarily, and after a successful conversion, it will be automatically removed from the source machine.

• Yes.

• OK, this is the source machine information.

• Close.

• We also have three options here: Remote Windows Machine, Remote Linux Machine, and This Local Machine.

• Next.

• This is our target, or destination, information.

• 10.2.6.2 is our ESXi target.

• Enter the ESXi root credentials. It’s not necessary to use the root username, but the account you use should have full permissions.

• Next.

• This is a certificate warning. Click Ignore.

• Here we should give the name of the machine that will be imported to ESXi.

• Next.

• Here you can see the datastores available on your ESXi host. The files for the converted machine will be stored on the selected datastore.

• Next.

• You can see the tasks that will be performed during the conversion, and you can edit these settings.

• These are the volumes on the source machine.

• You can change the volume settings on the destination virtual machine — for example, you can change the disk type to thin provisioning on the destination virtual machine.

• Next.

• Finish.

• OK, the conversion process has started, and you can monitor the tasks and their status from here. The duration will depend on the network connection speed between the source and destination.

• The conversion task has not yet completed, but as you can see, the virtual machine has been created.

• The data has been copied to the ESXi datastore, and the conversion is being finalized in the background. Do not power on the virtual machine until the conversion task is finished.

• OK, that’s completed. Now, power on the virtual machine.

• The physical server has been converted to a virtual machine. You can change its settings just like any other virtual machine.

• That’s great, everything works fine.