Below is a link to my instructions for migrating virtual machines from Parallels Desktop for Mac to previous builds of Fusion. I have found that these instructions continue to work with Fusion beta3. Only a few clarifications are required.
[http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=72654 | http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=72654]
One small clarification is needed at the end of the process, once you are ready to power-on your freshly-created Fusion VM. To do this, you need to point Fusion at the VM's
.vmx
file, which is the file that defines its configuration. Before beta3, Fusion's "Welcome Screen" contained aBrowse...
button. As of beta3, Fusion's front page screen is now called the "Virtual Machine Library," and it no longer has aBrowse...
button. Instead, just pull down Fusion'sFile
menu and chooseOpen...
. Point the dialogue at the.vmx
file.Several users have reported problems with the VMware Converter tool itself. The first and simpler potential problem: Make sure that you are running Converter as Administrator or as a user with administrative privilege!
Here's the subtler (and much less likely) problem. Converter relies on Microsoft's Volume Shadow Copy Service, which in turn requires the use of up to 300 MB of free disk space in an NTFS. If your VM has no NTFS-formatted volumes, or none with space, Converter will fail. To tell whether a Windows disk is NTFS-formatted or not, right-click on it in Windows Explorer and choose
Properties
.In this screenshot, notice that the C: drive shown has file system type FAT32, not NTFS.
If all your disks are FAT or FAT32, the symptom of the Converter failure will be that the conversion will take several minutes, run to 97% completion, and then fail. The failure looks like this:
If your VM has an NTFS with 300 MB free space, you will not have this problem, so you don't need to read here any farther. Instead, go over to http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=72654 and follow the instructions there.
If your VM has no NTFS with free space, the problem is easy to work around. Before beginning the conversion of your Parallels VM, add another virtual disk to the VM, and format it as NTFS.
To do so, start with the Parallels VM powered off. Choose
Edit
thenVirtual Machine
. In the resulting Configuration Editor screen, click "Add" and tell Parallels Desktop that you want to add a Hard Disk.
The new virtual disk need not be very large (I chose 512 MB for mine because that is a nice round number), and its characteristics are not important. After you add it, Parallels will describe your VM like so:
Notice the new "Disk 2" line. This new virtual disk is blank.
Now you must start the VM and make the disk useful: define a partition on it, assign a drive letter, and write an NTFS into it. In this example, I will use Windows XP. These tasks are accomplished by right-clicking on My Computer, choosing
Manage
, and then choosingDisk Management
in the resulting screen. Because Disk Management finds a blank disk on this system when it launches, it presents the Initialize and Convert New Disk wizard.
Use the wizard to create a primary partition on this new disk and format an NTFS into it.
Once the new disk has an empty NTFS, you are ready to run Converter. Make sure to clear the checkbox from Converter's disk-selection panel for the new NTFS you just made! The VM will not need this virtual disk once the migration is done.
Notice that disk E: is not selected for conversion in that example.
Now Converter will run to completion. Be sure to follow the post-conversion instructions in http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=72654 to install VMware Tools; if you don't, the VM's mouse won't work.
Thanks to user idavidso (among others) for reporting this problem, and to Pat Lee for discovering the answer.