Transfer VMWare Workstation

[Ashraful_VU]

Dear Community,

I've a Virtual machine running in VMWare 12.5. Now I need to take backup of that machine and migrate it to another machine. But the problem is I want to take the backup without shutting down the VM. I looked for the possible solution in the resource section but everywhere it's suggested that I need to Shutdown the guest OS i.e. the VM before taking backup. So I want to know whether there's any other option where I can take the backup without shutting down the VM machine and migrate it to another machine.

Best wishes always

Ashraful

[scott28tt]

Moderator note: Moved to Workstation Pro

[RDPetruska]

About the only other thing I can think of (and might not work) is to use the VMware Converter inside the running guest, to "create a VM" of the current machine onto another networked machine.

[continuum]

0. I assume the VM is running

1. make sure the VM has no snapshot !

2.read vmx to doublecheck the VM has no snapshot !

3. copy vmx-file to backup location

4. create new snapshot

5. copy base-vmdk to backup location

6. now that the backup is done use snapshot manager and delete the only snapshot

7. (optional) - you may test the backupped VM by double-clicking the vmx-file you created in step 3

- decide wether you need a new VM or a copied VM before you answer "did you copy or move the VM.?"

Please note : the backupped VM will be in sync with the state you had after step 3 - NOT with the state you have after step 5

Test it with a test VM until you understand all the steps

[wila]

Hi,

The above methods should work.

You could also use Vimalin (see my signature) for this.

1. Make a backup with your old VMware Workstation

2. Attach the backup target to the machine that hosts the new VMware Workstation. As it will notice that the backup storage has an existing VM it will ask if you want to import the backups from that backup target to your new host.

3. Restore the backup to your new host

Please note that Ulli's tip to best commit old snapshots still count. Especially as you are both changing hardware as well as VMware Workstation version.

--

Wil