KB ID 0001516

Problem

Recently I’ve looked a lot at converting VMware resources to either Hyper-V, or Azure. But what if you want to take a Microsoft machine (or workload) and run it in VMware? 

Well the easiest way is to use some freeware, “StarWind V2V Image Converter”. These days I’m dubious about any piece of freeware, because it’s either a) Not Free when you actually want to use it in anger, b) Full of adware and nastiness, c) Just a vehicle to get your email address to send you marketing and junk.

Well you do need to supply an email address to get it but, other than suggesting I might want to take a look at their free VSAN software, they have left me alone (ThanQ).

Solution

Launch the software, and browse to the folder containing your .vhd to .vhdx file. (Note: You can connect directly to a Hypervisor if you wish).

Again I’m going to output to a local file, (faster) but as above, you can output to a Hypervisor. (I’ll simply just SCP the image into VMware and create a VM with it, when I’m finished).

Select your output type, basically they are; VMware Workstation (thick or thin), Stream optimised (.OVA), or the one we want, ESXi.

Note: You can also output to RAW file or GQCOW2 (Handy for if you run EVE-NG and what to upload a server/workstation into it!)

Time for a coffee! Hopefully this is what you will see.

Related Articles, References, Credits, or External Links

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