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Table Of Contents
Convert a Physical or Virtual Machine 4
You can create a conversion job to convert a physical or virtual machine to a variety of destinations. You can
convert physical machines, VMware virtual machines, third-party backup images and virtual machines, and
Hyper-V Server virtual machines into VMware standalone virtual machines or virtual machines that vCenter
Server manages.
The approach you take for creating the conversion job is determined by the type of source and the type of
destination that you select.
Source type
A powered-on physical or virtual machine, a VMware Infrastructure virtual
machine running on an ESX host, or a standalone virtual machine.
Standalone virtual machines include VMware virtual machines, backup
images, and third-party virtual machines, such as VMware Workstation,
VMware Server, VCB, Acronis True Image, Microsoft Virtual PC, Virtual
Server, Symantec Backup Exec Server Recovery (formerly known as
LiveState Recovery), LiveState Recovery, StorageCraft, Parallels Desktop for
Microsoft Windows and Mac OS, Parallels Workstation, and Norton Ghost
(only .sv2i) images.
For a complete list of supported source types and product versions, see
“Supported Source Types,” on page 21.
Destination type
ESX host, ESX host that vCenter Server manages, or a VMware standalone
virtual machine.
For a complete list of supported destination types and product versions, see
“Supported Destination Types,” on page 23.
Procedure
1 Start the Wizard for a Conversion on page 40
The Conversion wizard guides you through the steps of creating a conversion job.
2 Select a Source Machine to Convert on page 40
You can select from several source options for the type of machine to convert.
3 Select a Destination for the New Virtual Machine on page 46
When you set up a conversion job, you must select a destination for the new virtual machine.
4 Configure the Hardware of the Destination Virtual Machine on page 49
You can configure the virtual hardware resources that the destination virtual machine uses.
5 Configure the Software on the Destination Virtual Machine on page 61
You can configure the guest operating system so that it is ready to operate in a virtual environment.
VMware, Inc.
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