Matthijs's blog : VMC2Hyper-V

VMC to Hyper-V import tool - update

matthts — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 23:31:00 GMT

It has been a while since my last post on the tool. It is still being tested within a limited group. However I get many requests for the tool but cannot handle any more. Thanks for all who wanted to volunteer.

The tool will be called ‘VMC to Hyper-V import tool’, in short ‘VMC to Hyper-V’. This suggest it supports any VMC which is my goal but not yet true. The initial goal was to support import of Virtual Server VMC files as Hyper-V is a server product. But I intend to do some testing with VPC2007 VMC files as well.

The name also contains ‘import’ instead of ‘migrate’. With importing you can repeat the step as often as you like and nothing in the original VMC file gets changed. With migrate there is usually some form of conversion and sometimes it is a no-way-back process. I think import better reflects the nature of the tool.

There are a couple of small things on the todo list but they may not get into the first release. Things like Guest OS verification with regards to logical processor support or startup and shutdown behavior of the VM. I wonder if people often used the startup/shutdown behavior setting of the VM. If you do, let me know and I may try to add support for those settings.

I plan to release the tool in September.

VMC to Hyper-V migration tool

matthts — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:19:00 GMT

Yet another update just before my vacation.

I have finalized the tool so it is feature complete, according to my specifications. Below is a screen shot of what it looks like today.

The tool now basically covers everything there is you can specify in a Hyper-V vm. Looking at a Virtual Server or Virtual PC configuration file, all settings which can apply to a Hyper-V vm are imported and can be modified in the UI.
Of course, BIOS settings like NumLock and boot order are Hyper-V specific but I added those for completeness. You can choose to have the SCSI boot disk swapped with the forst IDE disk. This is handy for those who have used SCSI with Virtual Server.

The tool is now being tested within a closed group at Microsoft. After I return from vacation, I plan to release this as soon as possible.

Update on the VMC import tool for Hyper-V

matthts — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:30:00 GMT

I have made several enhancements to the tool and it is almost feature complete. I have added the capability to import and modify COM port settings, Virtual Machine notes and BIOS settings.

The updated tool looks like this:

Virtual Server to Hyper-V tool

matthts — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:43:00 GMT

When you have Virtual Server or Virtual PC virtual machines, you can use them in Hyper-V. However, this requires quite some manual steps. For the minimum, you need to attach the virtual hard disk files (.vhd files) to the hard disk drives in Hyper-V. This requires at least creating a VM from the Hyper-V wizard, opening up the settings for the newly created VM and then configuring the drives (probably IDE) with the virtual hard disk files.

But there are more settings you may want from the original VM. Things like memory, CPU resource control, DVD image, floppy image, SCSI controllers, etc. If you do want those as well, you must open the VMC file in Notepad and make the adjustments in Hyper-V accordingly. When you have many VM's, this takes quite some time. I have done this for a server with 15 machines, all with different memory settings, multiple network adapters and multiple virtual hard disks.....

Because of the lack of VMC import functionality in Hyper-V, I have developed a "Virtual Server to Hyper-V import tool". This tool basically takes a VMC file and puts all supported (in Hyper-V that is) settings in the UI. From there, you can tweak the settings; update the virtual drive image paths, choose whether to create synthetic or legacy network adapters and more. Once you are done, you connect to a Hyper-V host and create the Hyper-V VM from the original VMC configuration (or whatever you modified) with one click.

I have used it with all my Virtual Server VM's and it worked very well.

I am working on a few remaining issues and hope to have those resolved soon.

Below is a screen shot of the tool.