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Tom Robinson
Asked: 2010-02-21 06:06:22 +0800 CST

How can I convert a physical machine to a Windows Virtual PC machine (possibly using SCVMM)

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I've got a physical machine which I'd like to convert to a virtual machine. I've done this P2V process a number of times onto Windows Server 2008 R2 and Hyper-V by using System Centre Virtual Machine Manager.

However, in this case I'd like to go a step further and move the virtual machine created by the P2V process onto a machine running Windows 7 Ultimate and Windows Virtual PC.

Is there a recommended way of doing this or should I just copy the VHD file over and hope it works?

windows-7 vhd scvmm windows-virtual-pc

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    I successfully made the conversion with thanks to Jake Oshins and Babul A. Mukherjee. Here's how I did it:

    1. Cleaned up the source machine - delete unnecessary files, defragment etc.
    2. Ran the latest Disk2vhd on the source machine making sure to check the Fix up HAL for Virtual PC box (I think this is a new feature)
    3. Copied the VHD file to the new host (running Windows 7 and Windows Virtual PC)

    Because the source machine drive was 250GB (even though only 55GB was in use) Virtual PC was unable to open it so I had to perform these additional steps:

    1. Mount the VHD file on the host machine
    2. Resize the partition so that it's under 127GB and leave the remaining space unallocated
    3. Download VHD Resizer and shrink the VHD file so that it's also under 127GB

    Then you should be able to use the drive with Windows Virtual PC under Windows 7.

    Unfortunately the Integration Services don't fully/properly install as they're not supported on Windows Server 2003 R2, but it works well enough.

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  2. Windows Virtual PC is much more closely related to Microsoft Virtual Server than to Hyper-V. It's based on the same VMM.

    Tell SCVMM that you want to do a P2V migration to Microsoft Virtual Server. Then copy the resulting VHD file to the machine running Windows Virtual PC. Then, after you boot the VM, be sure to install the new VM "additions" or "integration components."

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  3. SCVMM works great.

    But for quick and FREE use Disk2VHD from the Sysinternals folks. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/ee656415.aspx

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