Convert Parallels VM for use in Fusion on MAC and Workstation 6 on WinXp

[oceanforest]

Hi, newbie question here:

I've been reading the forums and nobody has posted something similar.

I read Brian's excellent post on converting Parallels VM to Fusion VM. But

it doesn't quite answer my question.

My question is this: I want to convert the parallels VM to something that

I can share between Fusion running on a macbook pro and Workstation 6

running on a WinXP laptop (Lenovo, not that it matters). I will

manually copy over the VM to the two different laptops.

Brian's conversion procedure uses VMware Converter. But Converter's

limitation is that it cannot generate a VMware Workstation 6 image. Only

VMware 5.X images. I need USB 2.0 in Fusion and Workstation 6.

So what are my choices? Has anybody done this before?

I thought about doing this:

1. Use Brian's procedure using VMware converter to generate a WS 5.x

image from a running Parallels VM image.

2. Load the VM into Workstation 6 running on WinXP. Convert the WS 5.x

image into a WS 6.x image.

3. Run it in WS 6 on WinXP. Copy the WS 6.x VM to a Mac and run Fusion

on it.

Does that work? Has anybody done this? I'd like to find out if there are

any issues with this before I spend the next 3 weeks of restless nights

trying to get this to work.

Thanks!

[getwired]

That's exactly the steps I would try if I were in the same boat, actually...

[Pat_Lee]

Actually, Brian's latest steps will create a Fusion/WS 6.0 VM using the virtual disks created by Converter and creating a new format virtual machine (Fusion/WS 6/Player 2) using those Converter virtual disks. You can use them today if you have already been running this VM to migrate it to a Fusion "specific" VM.

This new VM will have USB 2.0 and all latest hardware version features. The difference between this VM and a WS created on is that Fusion defaults to soft p ower operations by default.

Also, if you have Workstation 6, the version of Converter included with Workstation 6 will create a Workstation 6 VM, which shares the same virtual machine format as Fusion with different default settings. So, you will get USB 2.0 and the like.

Hope that helps.

Pat

[oceanforest]

Pat, thanks for telling me about Brian's latest procedure. I missed that.

The RC1 release procedure is his latest one. I think I have two choices:

1. Use Brian's latest procedure to crank out a WS 6/Fusion VM from

parallels image.

2. Run WS 6 Converter (NOT the free converter) within Parallels VM

to crank out a WS 6 VM and use it for WS 6 and Fusion.

I will try one of those pretty soon. I'll let you guys know how it goes.

Thank You very much.