How portable are VM images?

M

makepeace

Junior Member
I am expecting that I can export a VM from my machine to another iMac running parallels and it will run on that machine without modification (or only minor path changes?)
However what if we move an image from say a MacBook to an iMac or vice versa. Is the hardware completely virtualised away so that the Windows install is identical on all macs or are the drivers hardware specific?
 
No problem moving XP from MBP ti solo core mac mini or iMac. I think they are extremely portable because back in bata 1 or 2 before the HD expander, Parallels suggested you take you image to a windows or Linux VM and expand you image.
 
Sounds Promising

This sounds promising but if I understand the reply correctly was related to increasing the size of the virtual disk image (a disk format issue only). I am confident that the disks are portable (ie an HDD image made on Mac A can be mounted as a valid disk on Mac B).
What I am uncertain of is whether the device drivers are the same on all Macs? Will a Windows Install created on Mac A boot without problem on Mac B? Do details of the underlying hardware 'leak through' to the virtual machine in any way, or is it truly virtual (like a Java JVM) and hence portable to any Mac hardware?
 
It's fully portable, really!

I can confirm that this works, even crossing platform borders!

After I decided to go Mac Intel and ordered a MBP 17", I had to wait 3 weeks until it actually arrived. During that time, I used Parallels Workstation for Windows on my old WinXP box to set up a WinXP VM. I installed XP, all the online updates, did the activation, installed all the apps and stuff I needed.

Then my MBP arrived. I just copied the image from the windows box to the MBP, installed Parallels for Mac - and the virtualized XP worked immediately without any problems (and no re-actiavtion of XP!!). Amazing!
 
Parallels for Windows?

There is a version for Windows? No way?
I must have missed that - this is so cool!
I have already managed to virtualise a tricky application that could not get authorised on the Microsoft VM solution - when I tell my client that they can do this on Windows they will be ecstatic.
Many thanks.
 
Error reading the disk

I have downloaded the PC version of Parallels workstation and installed. Then I copied one of my images across from the Macintosh. I had to delete the floppy disk, reassign the CD etc for the VM to work, but then when I boot the VM reports a disk error:

A disk read error occurred
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart

I tried defragmenting the disk image in Image tools (mainly to verify that the disk image was readable) and that worked but the problem persists. Are the images no longer portable between Mac (RC1) and Windows versions?
 
As said, I did it the other way around - I set up the XP VM in the Windows version of Parallels and took it over to the Mac version (beta 6). It also works with RC1, but I went back to beta6 due to keyboard mapping and global key handling issues.

However, I ported the entire VM (the .pvs file and the .hdd files of my C: and D: partitions).

BTW: I asked Parallels about VM compatibility, and they confirmed that VMs are portable between platforms.
 
makepeace said:
I have downloaded the PC version of Parallels workstation and installed. Then I copied one of my images across from the Macintosh. I had to delete the floppy disk, reassign the CD etc for the VM to work, but then when I boot the VM reports a disk error:

A disk read error occurred
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart

I tried defragmenting the disk image in Image tools (mainly to verify that the disk image was readable) and that worked but the problem persists. Are the images no longer portable between Mac (RC1) and Windows versions?
Click to expand...

After further testing (made a new partition and mounted that one as a second hard drive) it seems that the file may have got corrupted in copying. Will try again at the office tomorrow and let you all know.
 
I have been unable to move VM images from my 17" MacBook Pro to an iMac. I tried copying the VM image through the network and I tried burning it to a CD. No whatter what method I use, Parallels doesn't recognize the copy of my VM image. Is the image getting corrupted when I duplicate it or am I configuring Parallels wrong?
 
Sandrino,

Will you please give us more details about the problem. What would Parallels say when you try to point it to the copied HDD? Probably, that's just a permissions problem, that's easily workaroundable.
 
I will get more details tonight

I am not at home where the iMac in question is. I will try moving the VM image again when I get home and I'll write down as much detail as possible. Is there an official way to move an image from one Mac to another? Maybe I am missing something.

Thanks for the help!
 
There's no any "official" way of moving files - just use your preferred way of transferring the files between desktops.

I can think of just one possible reason - the .hdd file permissions is set to "Read-Only". To check it, right-click the .hdd file and choose "Get Info..." option. In the info window appeared find the "Ownership and Permissions" section and make sure you can "Read & Write" the file. I've attached a small picture that could help you.
 

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Got it working

Sorry guys - forgot to give update as promised.
1. HDD image was corrupted in copying. I have many problems moving large files between Mac and PC in 10.4.6 (I would almost go as far as to say that it seems it cannot be done - something up with Samba?)
2. I copied successfully by enabling FTP on the Mac and logging in from Windows to retrieve the HDD image.
3. I was obliged to reinstall the Parallels Tools when running on PC.
4. In several other respects the PC version feels less polished than the Mac version.
5. On the other hand my benchmark software (FreshDevices FreshDiagnose) benchmarks my Parallels virtual machine as significantly faster than the PC it is running on :-)
PS: Still dont know why I cant move the image between user accounts on a single Mac though?
 
It Worked

I checked the permissions on the VM image file, they were corect. I had full access to read an write the file. Then before trying anything else, I double clicked on the .pvs file. That click opened the VM image. I don't know why it didn't work before but no matter how many times I tried to select the VM image through the prefs, I got an error about it being an invalid file. Opening the .pvs file directly in the finder somehow cleared up the problem.
 
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