new to forum, basic P2V question

[ginahoy]

I have an old XP machine that I need to convert to a VM before the hardware fails. It has software that I use in my business -- some of which is no longer available, and in some cases, I no longer have the install disks. I intend to run the VM on my LInux machine that has a fast CPU, SSD, and lots of RAM.

I tried using VMware Converter Standalone to create what VMware refers to as a 'hot clone' of my XP machine that would run in VMware Workstation Player on the Linux box. However, when I start the VM, XP starts to load but throws a BSOD with a "7B" error. From what I gather in the Workstation forum, when hot-cloning a live OS, it's necessary to re-configure the VM with any non-standard drivers, which I can't do because Converter relies on something called "Sysprep files" for that, which unfortunately is not supported in XP Home, which is what I have. I looked into upgrading to XP Pro but I discovered that requires wiping the disk and installing from scratch, which I can't do.

According to the main StarWind page, P2V appears to be limited to Windows hosts and VMware ESXi, which if I understand correctly, is a stand-alone hypervsior/operating system for VMware products. So can StarWind create a VM of my live XP physical machine that will run on VMware's Workstation Player (*.vmdk)?

[yaroslav (staff)]

I intend to run the VM on my LInux machine that has a fast CPU, SSD, and lots of RAM.

Please see the conversion scenarios https://www.starwindsoftware.com/v2v-help/Concept.html.

Not sure if the solution allows for your conversion scenario.

[ginahoy]

@yaroslav, thank you for your reply. I already had reviewed the concept diagram, which shows the same thing as the StarWind P2V home page: P2V conversion is limited to cloud (AWS, Azure), Hyper-V (Windows) or a VMware ESXi "set of disks", none of which are helpful in my scenario.

However, it appears I can do a P2V conversion to Hyper-V (VHD), and then do a V2V conversion to VMware (VMDK), which I can run in VMware Workstation Player installed on the Linux machine. It certainly doesn't hurt to try.

[yaroslav (staff)]

The P2V conversion of Windows XP is not on the list which means that such a conversion was not tested. You still can try P2V disks to VHD; there should be no risk for the physical VM.

[ginahoy]

The person who referred me here used StarWind to do a P2V of his XP machine, but in that case, he was running Hyper-V in Windows 10. So assuming I can replicate his success, can I take the resulting VDH file and convert that to VDMK (i.e., V2V)?

You still can try P2V disks to VHD

What do you mean by "P2V disks"

[yaroslav (staff)]

There are 2 ways to convert the physical machine to the virtual one: convert disks and create a VM with those disks, convert the server itself.
Sure you can try conversion of the server and VHD to VHDX.

[ginahoy]

Ok I tried to install V2V/P2V on my Windows machine and got an error "Cannot expand "pf64" constant", which I gather means it won't run on a 32-bit machine. In the comments section for the V2V/P2V Converter White Paper, someone asked if there's a 32-bit version. StarWind Software replied "The architecture of StarWind V2V Converter was fully reworked and now only x64 version is available. The x32 version is currently in the development progress." That was 3 years ago. Is that still being developed?

[yaroslav (staff)]

Hi,

Sadly no.

[ginahoy]

I was able to virtualize my 32-bit XP machine with disk2vhd converter and I then installed the StarWind P2V/V2V converter on my wife's Win10 laptop so I could convert the resulting Hyper-V .vhdx file to .vmdk. However, V2V didn't create a .vmx configuration file so I can't open in VMware Workstation Player. Am I missing something, or is what I'm trying to do not possible? I apologize, but this is my first time using any of these tools.

[yaroslav (staff)]

Hi,

Try converting the individual disks. Then, just spin up the VM.
Desktop OSs are not supported by the converter according to the specification.