HOW TO: P2V, V2V for FREE - VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 6.2.0.1

VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 6.2.0.1 was released on the 22 May 2018, VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 6.2.0.1 Build 8466193 replaces the previously released VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 6.2 Build 7348398.

As of November 2019, VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 6.2.0.1 is the current release, before the awaited release of VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 7.0, you've guessed it to support ESXi 7.0!

Interoperability with vSphere 6.7 Update 1
Support for additional guest operating systems: Windows Server 2016, Ubuntu 16.
Converter Standalone 6.2 adds a new configuration option in converter-worker.xml for Linux migrations.
With Converter Standalone 6.2 you can change the default destination provisioning disk type from thick to thin.
VMware Converter Standalone 6.2.0.1 can convert offline virtual machines from Hyper-V, the following Hyper-V virtual machines are supported for conversion
- Windows Server 2008 R2 (64-bit)
- Windows Server 2012 (64-bit)
- Windows Server 2012 R2 (64-bit)
- Windows 10 (64-bit)
- Windows Server 2016 (64-bit)

This release fixes the following issues common issues seen reported in Experts Exchange.

Conversion of a powered-on Windows machine to an SMB share fails
Converting Windows 10 or Windows Server 2016 source machine with incremental sync in progress fails if the machine reboots in between incremental steps
Cannot virtualize a physical machine from within VMware Workstation 14.x
Interoperability with VMware Workstation 14.x does not work.

Please note the following, as with all releases of VMware vCenter Converter Standalone, when an operating system vendor discontinues an Operating System, VMware also removes the support from VMware vCenter Converter Standalone. With the release of VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 6.0, Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP3 (32-bit and 64-bit) support has been removed, the last version that supported Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP3 (32-bit and 64-bit) was VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.5.3.

Microsoft Windows Server 2003 support ended on July 14, 2015, because of the need to migrate these physical servers to VMware vSphere (ESXi), I am noticing more Experts Exchange questions on How To P2V Microsoft Windows Server 2003?

VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 6.2 does not have support for P2V a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 server. VMware or Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2 (32-bit and 64-bit).

Microsoft Windows Server 2003 SP2 (32-bit and 64-bit) support was removed from VMware vCenter Converter Standalone, after VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.0, and support for Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 SP6 and Microsoft Windows 2000 SP4 was removed after VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 4.0.1. See the following table

Note that it does not specify 6.2.0.1 in the version, only the build number has changed!

VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 6.2.0.1 is a free product, but it does have some limitations, P2V and V2V have to be conducted manually, also you may find some conversions troublesome and difficult.

If you have a budget for P2V/V2V software, there are other commercial products that do exist, and we have used, which you may want to investigate.

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 6.2.0.1

The products are listed below:-

Accyotta DoubleTake MOVE

Microfocus Platespin Migrate (was NETIQ)

Acronis Cyber Backup

Storagecraft Shadow Protect

Veritas System Recovery Server Edition

Paragon Virtualization Manager 14 Professional

Easus P2V Copy

Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows (this is FREE!) and I wrote an EE Article here about it here (personally I think it's better than "VMware Converter"

HOW TO: Perform a Physical to Virtual (P2V) Conversion the easy way from a computer backup (image)

If the operating system is Windows 2000 or Windows NT 4.0, select VMware vCenter Converter Standalone version 4.0.1. for Windows 2003, use 5.5.3. Support for legacy operating systems has been removed from v6.2.

If you have recently upgraded to vSphere vCenter Server 6.5, and are looking for the Convert/Import vCenter plugin which existed with 4.x, it's no longer available and has been removed, and you will need to use VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 6.2.0.1 for your conversions.

And if you do use VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 6.2.0.1, and you want to make your transfers 60% faster there is no longer the requirement, to disable SSL, which was a common modification required with VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.0

Hints and Tips can be found in my other EE Articles, which discuss Physical to Virtual conversions and VMware vCenter Converter Standalone.