Parallels 6: No import of VMs anymore?

OK, so where did this end up? Can we convert .vhd drives or not?

 

I had a problem with one of my .vhd's but I couldn't reproduce it with new .vhd's which seem to work fine.

You can use the method I gave in #6 (uses files from Parallels 5) or you could use the prl_convert command mentioned in #8 which may require you to make a fake Virtual PC configuration file mentioned in #11.

 

I just installed Parallels Desktop to test the product and I was excited with the results but definitely the fact we cannot convert VHD files is a roadblock for me. I found this topic just because I was having issues to even open the .VHD files.

Hopefully you will find the path to fix this but for now I am afraid I will need to consider the competitor.

Thanks.

 

Two methods were given in this thread to import .vhd files. Did you try either of them? Which version of Virtual PC are your vhd files from?

 

Joe,

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately it is not that simple in this case. Let me try to explain.

Microsoft provide to all MCT (Microsoft Trainers) all the VMs we are used to use in class but these VMs are a little bit different because it is basically composed by two or more VHD files (one base file and one or more additional file). In other words the base file is a snapshot of a VM in a common state we can use in multiple machines and the second one is basically the changes .. and the base file is used by all the VMs.

When I try to convert using both ways suggested in this topic it is not working and unfortunately in my case I am not talking about a single conversion but I'd convert 20-30 VMs per month.

Hope you understand the problem.

Thanks

 

I was guessing that it didn't work for you because the source of your vhd files was different than mine (Virtual PC 6 for Mac) and therefore may have a different format and I was asking where your vhd files came from (what product created or uses them) so I could try creating my own for testing.

If you can load the vhd somehow as a disk without mounting the volumes on the disk and create a file that is a block copy of the disk, then you can convert the file to a Parallels disk image. This can be done with Mac disk images on Mac OS X but I don't know about your vhd's.

 

I created this document but when i go into parallels and select open the file '.mvc' is greyed out.

 

I like this disk image idea could you elaborate...

 

.mvc is typo! need .vmc (virtual machine configuration)

 

Sorry for bumping this thread but I'm having almost the same problem. I'm trying to port some of my VirtualBox images to parallels. The images are in the .vhd format. So I've created a mvc file. Only when i try this I cant select the file from transporter select config menu.

I've also tried importing it with desktop but than i'm getting an error "this path does not exists". After a quick search on the forum it seems this problem is often resolved by changing the file permissions. (Also the path does exists of course)

 

mvc has got to be a typo. Try vmc for the file extension.

 

yeah figured is was a typo but after that is when the path doesn't exist messages occurs. Still i'm trying to import it with the desktop app but when i try to use the transporter its gray'ed out. So i'm not able to test it with the transporter

 

Parallels 6: No import of VMs anymore? - Me too!

I am having the exact same problem. I was hoping this was going to be much easier.

 

What are you trying to do? I've been using version 6 for some time now to convert whole VMs with none of the problems I used to have when I tried to do individual .vhd drives in the past. I regularly convert working Windows Virtual Server and Windows Virtual PC systems this way.

In parallels, I simply do File->Open, find the vmc file, and select it for opening. From there on out, everything is pretty much automatic.

For those of you who are having difficulties, what are you doing?

 

I'm trying to do just what you describe. I am using Parallels 7 on a Mac and click File>Open, then try to select a vmc file, however, the vmc file is grayed out and I cannot select it.

I also tried to open a vhd file as well as a vmdk file. I have also tried to "add an existing image". I also tried opening both an ova and ovf file. (open virtualization format and open virtualization archive)

In all cases I cannot select/open any of the files. The above files are "grayed out" in the open window.

What I want to do is be able to open/import an image that was originally created in VMWare Fusion or VirtualBox. The VirtualBox application is easily able to open the Fusion images, and Fusion can open VirtualBox files.

 

It is strange. Parallels Desktop 7 allows to open different VM's. For more information see Import section in Parallels Desktop User's Guide.

In any case you can try to use prl_convert directly from Terminal. Example:
/Library/Parallels/Parallels\ Service.app/Contents/PlugIns/Parallels\ VM\ Converter.app/Contents/MacOS/prl_convert /Users/Shared/MyVm.vmwarevm

 

Yes, I know the docs say this is supported but this thread and many others are having the same problem and we cannot open these other files.

Creating a new file from scratch works fine. The problem is I have several images that took a great deal of time and effort to create and I would like to use those in Parallels. I am not going to take the time to recreate them from scratch in Parallels.

I am pretty much done at this point. If Fusions and VirtualBox work so much better WITHOUT resorting to running commands from Terminal then I am just going to switch to them and not mess with Parallels.

 

Sorry, but we don't support third party disk images directly at this moment.
MHamm, please create a problem report (Help -> Report a problem) for your issue.

Thanks

 

That's unfortunate....your competition does. They will also open/convert Parallels images to their format.

What I am not clear on is WHY your documentation and website says otherwise. I do see that some people seem to be able to open these images....at least on older versions of Parallels. I don't really understand that.

Thanks anyway.

MHamm

 

MHamm, I can't reproduce the problem. I'm able to choose test.vmc file. And there is no way to choose virtual disk image in File Open dialog.

Could you provide any additional info about your VM's and problem report? (in private if you want).

Thanks.