How to change VM's non-ASCII characters name to ASCII?

[richardliu44]

Hi, my customer created some vms in Chinese, as a result, the VM's folder/display name/vmdk name are Chinese, which is not supported by the 3rd backup software. Here i tried 2 ways to change these Chinese characters to English:

#1:Clone. It works well but some changes in guest OS during cloning could not be saved to the cloned vm.

#2:rename the displayname to English then used vmotion. The migranted  vm's display name/folder are in English, but the vmdk file name,etc were still in  Chinese. The 3rd backup software like NetBackup failed to back it up also.

SO, is there a better way to rename VM's  folder/display name/vmdk name, etc without losing any data in guest OS?

Thanks a lot!

[firestartah]

Hi

If you rename the vm and then use storage vmotion to migrate it to another datstore then it should also rename the folders and files.

Gregg

[richardliu44]

Hi Gregg,

You mean rename the vm's display name then select “change data storage” to migrate vm to another datastore? I have tried this method, but the vmdk,nvram,vmx file names are still Chinese. Thanks anyway!

Regards,

Richard

[Rubeck · Accepted solution]

Unfortunaly this no longer works in vSphere 5... Only the folder will be renamed as you've found out...

And if cloning doesn't work for you either you have to do it manually like described in this KB: http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1029513 which I guess you've already read..

/Rubeck

[richardliu44]

Hi, Thanks for informing me this KB...Yes my customer deployed ESXi5...Seems Clone is the only method...Thanks again.