HOW TO:  P2V, V2V for FREE - VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.1

HOW TO:  P2V, V2V for FREE - VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.1

If you need to complete a Physical to Virtual (P2V), Virtual to Virtual (V2V) conversion to a VMware product (VMware Workstation, Player or vSphere) for FREE, then there is some good news...

VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.1 was released on 25 April 2013, and this latest version has new support for the following:-


Also fixes numerous issues with crashing and conversion issues, when converting physical or virtual computers to VMware vSphere vCenter Server 5.1 and VMware Hypervisor ESXi 5.1.


While I would recommend and use VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.1, there are other commercial products that do exist, and I have used.

If you have a large estate of physical machines to migrate, these products have a scheduler and can perform automated workflows, but these are commercial products and not FREE like VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.1

NETIQ Platespin Migrate

Acronis vmProtect

Storagecraft Shadow Protect

Symantec System Recovery Server Edition

If the operating system is Windows 2003, Windows 2000 or Windows NT 4.0, select and earlier version of VMware vCenter Converter Standalone version 3.0.3 or 4.0, support for early operating systems has been removed now from v5.1.

if you have recently upgraded to vSphere vCenter Server 5.1, and are looking for the Convert/Import vCenter plugin which existed with 4.x, it's now longer available, and has been removed, and you will need to use  VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.1 for your conversions.

and if you do use VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.1, and you want to make your transfers 60% faster checkout my EE article here

HOW TO: Improve the transfer rate of a Physical to Virtual (P2V), Virtual to Virtual Conversion (V2V) using VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.0

Download VMware vCenter Converter 5.1 here
VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.1 Documentation
VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.1 User Guide


If you have issues, you may want to consult the following articles and guides

Read fellow Expert Bestway's article.

Best Practice Video Guide here

Some Videos I've develeoped for Experts Exchange members to show the VMware vCenter Converter process.

A Tutorial video by me:- Restore a Virtual Machine using the FREE VMware vCenter Converter to VMware vSphere 4.x, 5.0 ESXi 4.x, ESXi 5.0, ESX 4.0

A Tutorial video by me:- Backup VMware vSphere 4.x, 5.0 ESXi 4.x, ESXi 5.0, ESX 4.0 for FREE using VMware vCenter Converter

A Tutorial video by me:- VMware vCenter Converter Standalone Process at work

A Tutorial video by me:- VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.0 Convert monolithic sparse to monolithic flat for use with VMware vSphere 4.x 5.0 ESXi 4.x 5.0

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