Converting VMWare disk images.

[lailoken]

I've been a VMWare user for years... I've bought version 3 and 5.

I've now switched to Mac, downloaded and tried Paralels, and finding it an excellent already working product have pre-ordered it already.

The problem I now find is that I would like to convert/boot my gentoo/win2k/xp VMWare images to run on my MacBook Pro.

Are there tools available to convert the disk images? Surely this should be a relatively simple task?

For instance, VMWare comes with a disk mounting utility, and if Parallels did the same I would be able to just copy an installation.

I realise that the VMWare and Parallels drivers would not match up, but for Linux this would not be a problem, and for windows one would only need to reset the hardware profile and then install the Parallels drivers.

Further there are a huge amount of pre-configured vitual machine images out there in VMWare format... not being able to tap into this resource is a huge hinderance.

So what am I to do? Any suggestions?

Are there conversion tools in the pipeline? ETA?

I'm sure I'm not the only one with these questions...

[Andrew @ Parallels]

lailoken,

Thanks for suggesting! We will consider this possibility.

[lasse@christiansens.net]

I think we're a ton of people who would love a feature like this. Virtual server from MS can read Vmware images. Vmware can read Virtual Server/VPC images.

Now we just need for parallels to read Vmware images so that we can port our VM's to mac (maybe even convert parallels images to Vmware images using another utility).

Would be really great,

[biggles]

I agree! Think of the posibilities! With the Image tools VM has we could create images of real machines and convert them to Parallel images and run them on the fly. This would be a great feature!

[yannis]

My vote for this one too!
I also already preordered the Parallels WS 2.1 for Mac OS X (which so far beta testing on my MBP 17" & find particularly good for beta).

I have been a VMWare user for several years too, have bought versions 3, 4, and 5 and had others in our team do the same, and therefore have dozens of VMWare VMs that I would like to use rather than recreate.
Also, recently VMWare run a campain/competition for interesting ready-made free/preconfigured VMs. I believe there are some usefull ones there too for everyone with more coming.

Bottom line, if VMWare makes a Mac OS X version I get to reuse my old machines & the new ones as they are published. If Parallels makes it possible to convert all these machines then I get the above, plus your nicer GUI and what seems (so far) way better and quicker support & response to issues.

That is just my view, I believe you can do it (I would even bet that you people know VMWare more than just well..), and I believe it will be a bold item in your features list if you do..

Best Regards and keep up the good work!

[sithglan]

QEMU provides a tool which converts VMWARE Images into raw disk images. You can use that with parallels.

Thomas

[yannis]

That is very useful information, I will go and check it out.

Thanks Thomas


Still, if Parallels include a similar tools in the workstation....

[xntrek]

Found this article, How to convert a VMWare virtual appliance to work with Parallels (http://www.virtualizationdaily.com/archives/73_how-to-convert-a-vmware-virtual-appliance-to-work-with-parallels.html), which provides a step-by-step process for those of us in this boat.

[MaximS]

There is a Parallels Transporter tool for such aims. Check an article in Parallels Knowledge Base (http://kb.parallels.com/entry/72/292/) for this.

You can also look on the Parallels Virtual Appliances Directory (http://ptn.parallels.com/en/ptn/dir/) for ready-to-run Parallels images.