Converter "“insufficient permissions to access the source”"

[pstoric]

I’m trying to convert my physical laptop to a VM using Vmware Converter 6.2 but it keeps failing with “insufficient permissions to access the source” which is odd as I’m using my account which is a member of the local administrator’s group and the target is an SMB share on my desktop shared out to “everyone” with full permissions.

I made sure I can brose that share and create files (which worked) and then I even gave the users group full rights over the same folder, but it didn’t change anything. UAC is off on both machines. Not sure what I’m missing. I’ve attached the log.

[scott28tt]

OS and version?

Tried the actual administrator account?

[pstoric]

It's disabled but I can enable it and try later. The user account I attempted to use is a member of the admin group already though

[pstoric]

Same result. Very odd as my user is a member of the local admin group and a ran the vmware converter app as admin. 

[Lalegre]

Hey @pstoric,

Have you also trying disabling UAC from the registry? https://community.microfocus.com/adtd/sws-qc/f/itrc-895/285431/alm-support-tip-how-to-disable-uac-fr...

For example, with Windows 2008 R2 this was a requirement even if you disabled the UAC from the GUI. It is worth to give it a try.

Remember to reboot.

[berndweyand]

i have looked at the logs - there are many warnings:

UAC is enabled

Firewall enabled

Antivirus enabled

Did you start converter as administrator ?

and the permission error seems to be on the target site

[pstoric]

I can browse the SMB share and create/modify files without any issues. "everyone" has full permissions

UAC is off on the source machine

For AV, I'm using windows defender, no third party AV

Yes converter was started as admin

So you think it's the target? That's odd as it shows "FAILED: Insufficient permissions to access the source". Wouldn't the source be the machine I'm trying to convert?

[berndweyand]

2021-06-27T11:10:14.005-04:00 error vmware-converter-worker[05368] [Originator@6876 sub=task-1] No permissions to access \\192.168.1.53\dump\DESKTOP-7001FCV\DESKTOP-7001FCV.vmx. Error FileIO error: Permission denied for file : \\192.168.1.53\dump\DESKTOP-7001FCV\DESKTOP-7001FCV.vmx.

[pstoric]

I'm stumped.

[berndweyand]

again: check for UAC disabled in the actual logs

or give full access for the user you are using instead of everyone

always use UNC-path, no drive letter

[pstoric]

I gave the pstoric user explicit permissions on the target folder, double checked to make sure UAC was off on both source and destination computers (it was), and I'm already using the UNC path.

I'm going to try changing the target just an external disk to see if that makes a difference.

[pstoric]

Setting the destination target to and external drive resulted in this error. Some searching online said to uninstall and reinstall VMware converter which I did but no luck so far.

FAILED: A general system error occurred:
Missing Vstor2 driver or not started.

[berndweyand]

vstor2 means that the converter agent is not properly running on the source machine. try to reinstall vmware-converter-agent.exe manually

[pstoric]

I did that immediately after but no luck still.