How do I convert Virtual. Box files to work with VMWare WorkstationIf you do any virtualization at all, you are probably familiar with either Virtual. Box or VMWare. Chances are youve worked with both at one time or another. You might have started out with Virtual. Box only to find yourself needing to migrate to the more corporate friendly and powerful VMWare. In the attempt to migrate your virtual machines from Virtual. Best Portfolio Management Software Australia Time. Box to VMWare, you probably found yourself suffering from a headache or two while trying to figure out just how to migrate all those already configured virtual machines from one to the other. Convert Vmdk To Vmx Files' title='Convert Vmdk To Vmx Files' />That task probably had you giving up and reconstructing your virtual machines in VMWare. It doesnt have to be that way. You can actually migrate those virtual machines from Virtual. Box to VMWare. Its not easy, but it can be done. One would think the process would be simple export your virtual machine from Virtual. Box to the standard. VMWare. The problem is that Virtual. Once the export is done you will have three files. The. vmdk is the binary file, and the. Box and VMWare do not stick to the same standards for the file format. So in order to get an. A word of caution when using qemuimg to convert images for use with VMWare Fusion Fusion doesnt like disks that arent sized exactly to the megabyte. Whats the best way to convert a VMWare VMDK HDD file to a HyperV VHD file Ive been tasked with converting our environment to HyperV for evaluation purposes. We are. Antivirus Tools Avira AntiVir Personal 22082011 Free antivirus and antispyware ondemand scanner, detects and removes more than 50000 viruses and trojans. Virtual. Box file to import into VMWare, you will have to jump through a couple of hoops, which include having to manually modify that. In this How do I, Ill walk you through the steps required to migrate a Virtual. Box. ovf file to VMWare Workstation. This blog post is also available in PDF format in a Tech. Republic download. Step 1 Export your virtual machine. The first step is to export your virtual machine from Virtual. Box. This will, of course, assume you already have your virtual machine working, but powered off. This is a very easy task. With Virtual. Box open, click File Export Appliance, which will open the export manager. The wizard is easy to use and will walk you through the few steps necessary to get the virtual machine exported. The only gotcha is that you need to select the legacy OVF 0. This process, depending on how big your virtual machine is, can take quite some time. So go about your business while this is completing. Once the export is done you will have three files. The. vmdk is the binary file, and the. Now, for the challenging part, you have to manually edit that descriptor file so that it actually meets the same OVF standards that VMWare follows. Step 2 Editing your. The file you need to edit will be the. You MUST open this in a text editor. Do NOT open it in a word processor as this will add extra characters to the file, which will render it unreadable by either Virtual. Box or VMWare. The first section you need to edit is the format section. Look for a line of code near the top that contains this phrase ovf formatWhat follows that section needs to be changed to http www. OptimizedThe next edit in the same file is the Virtual System. Type, and it must be one of the following lt vssd Virtual. System. Type vmx 0. Virtual. System. Type for a esx 4. Virtual. System. Type vmx 0. Virtual. System. Type for esx 3. Believe it or not, the next item to edit is the rsad for the sound card. The section will look similar to lt Item lt rasd Caption soundlt rasd Caption lt rasd Description Sound Cardlt rasd Description lt rasd Instance. Id 6lt rasd Instance. Id lt rasd Resource. Type 3. 5lt rasd Resource. Type lt rasd Resource. Sub. Type ensoniq. Resource. Sub. Type lt rasd Automatic. Allocation falselt rasd Automatic. Allocation lt rasd Address. On. Parent 3lt rasd Address. On. Parent lt Item To the above section, add the following after the first lt Item tag lt Item ovf requiredfalse Step 3 Using the OVF tool. This step requires you to download and install the VMWare OVF Tool you will have to log in first. The OVF tool is command line only, and it will convert your newly prepped. VMWare can use. To do this, follow these steps Click Start Run. Type cmd. In the command window, change to the directory you installed the OVF Tool into and then issue the command. Where appliance. ovf is the name of the appliance you exported from Virtual. Box and newappliance. Depending on the size of your virtual appliance, this could take a while. Step 4 Import the appliance. The final step is to import the appliance into VMWare Workstation. To do this, you only need to click File Import and then walk through the user friendly wizard Figure A. Figure AConvert virtual machines into VMWare. The one step that might trip you up is the Source Type. You want to select Virtual Appliance because that is the only type of source that will accept an. Figure B. Figure BChoose the Virtual Appliance Source Type. If the import fails, your first line of defense is to make sure you edited the. If it checks out, then re run the OVF tool and try again. Final thoughts. The transition from Virtual. Box to VMWare is not the easiest task you will ever come across. And the process is not always successful from machine to machine. The steps outlined above have been the most successful I have used to date. Does that mean the steps are always 1. Not at all, and it wont be until Virtual. Box and VMWare can agree on a standard, which will make this task nothing more than a few drop down menus away from simple. But until then we are stuck with having to work with steps similar to what I have outlined above. Now, this task isnt nearly as difficult if you are importingexporting from one Virtual. Box to another Virtual. Box or one VMWare to another VMWare. Its only when you are crossing platforms that the difficulties raise their ugly heads. Stay on top of the latest Microsoft Windows tips and tricks with Tech. Republics Windows Desktop newsletter, delivered every Monday and Thursday.