Have you the run Win7 Upgrade Advisor?  Everything I see on the Microsoft site ( Upgrading from XP to Win7 ) says you can't upgrade directly from XP to Win7 without saving your files, doing a clean install and restoring.  Or upgrading to Vista, then to Win7.  You also can't upgrade any x86 Windows to it's x64 version in place.

Is your XP virtual disk a SCSI disk (e.g. Windows Easy Install wizard)?  You can look in Virtual Machine > Settings > Hard Disk to look at the bus type. 

For a clean install from the upgrade disc, try making a custom virtual machine through the wizard.  Choose Windows 7, then Customize Settings, go to the hard drive section, remove the SCSI disk using , then use to add an IDE disk, the defaults for a Win 7 machine should be 40 GB and uncheck "split into 2 GB files" (unless you're creating this on an external FAT32 USB disk).  Connect the Win 7 ISO (recommended over the physical disc), then boot that up to install Win7.

Separately I'm loading up a Vista SP2 x86 install CD to connect it to my XP SP3 VM which is SCSI-based and trying to reproduce the problem of no drivers found for the scenario of upgrading from XP x86 to Vista x86 to Win7 x86.  I have the space to spare so I'm curious to see what that path looks like, franken-upgrade!

Hi,

I went through some of the same issues with upgrading. After some research I found an easy way to do your install. Easy is relative to level of frustration, it does take some time. So here is what you do.

Create a new virtual machine and install without using the serial number, this is technically a trial install.

After installl is complete launch the install DVD from inside Win7 and do an upgrade install, then enter your serial number and complete the install.

It does authenticate without issue.

This method takes time, and you get a nice fresh install. Also this does not violate EULA as long as you have the serial for your old WinXP (if this is a concern).

hope it helps

Mike

Hey I tried the two separate XP SP3 to Win 7 upgrades (through Vista SP2), and they worked fine for VMware BusLogic SCSI and LSILogic SCSI disks.  In both cases I started the upgrade process in XP by running setup.exe.  I never needed any drivers on a floppy.  If you run the Win7 upgrade in XP it tells you straight out you have to upgrade to Vista first.

If you want to start with a fresh 'upgrade' install, the VMware Windows Easy Install wizard will setup everything necessary for the VM to see the disk.

Andy: Going from XP to Win7 requires a quasi full install as it doesn't retain any of your XP files.  However, during most of the upgrade process your XP file system is still available.  Whe I got to the part about the VMWare SCSI driver, I was able to browse the "Program Files" directory then "VMWare", "VMWare Tools", "Drivers".  Just make sure you have done an "Install VMWare Tools" onto your XP vm before starting the Win7 upgrade process.

andyadler wrote:

Thanks so much for the quick reply. But I can't seem to locate that directory being when I do the "Browse for Folder" during the Win 7 install.  Under "Computer" I get "Floppy Drive," CD Drive and "Boot (X:). When I click on "Boot (X:) I get a Program Folders folder, but within that nothing that indicates a VM Ware folder with the SCSI driver. Suggestions?

During installation at the point you need to load the driver pick Virtual Machine > Install VMware Tools, that will insert the Tools CD with the path to the Program Files\VMware Tools\drivers\scsi or x64 folder.  After the driver loads you have to switch your CD/DVD back to your Win 7 disc.

P.S. -- I should reiterate that I'm installing the 64-bit version of Win 7.

If your XP machine has a buslogic scsi virtual disk, there is no x64 driver for that bus type.  You can tell this by powering down the machine, temporarily change your guest OS type from XP to Win 7 x64 in Virtual Machine > Settings.  Power on your virtual machine, if you get this message: "The buslogic SCSI adapter is not supported for 64-bit guests in this release.", then your virtual hard disk is incompatible with any x64 version of Windows.   Change your guest OS back to XP so you can power on the VM again.

Yeah, two thoughts... make sure you have the bit-ness the same form XP or Vista to Win7.  The upgrade must be 32-to-32 or 64-to-64 ONLY!!!  Also, are you attempting to use a Boot Camp partition?  If so, you might want to just try from a file based VM first.  After saving off my personal data files, I did a clean XP install onto a clean file based VM, instlled VM Tools, Repaired VM Tools, then started the upgrade from the Win7 DVD.  I eventually got to a single 40G partition, selected it, browsed for the VM SCSI driver, then allowed Win7 to install to completion.  I don't recall ever having to explicitly format the partition as Win7 installation procedure must have made whatever changes to the partition it needed without asking me

Barry