Fusion and WorkStation?

[Dumby]

Hello all,

Since it's still time, Happy New Year.

Is it possible to import/migrate a VM created by VMware Workstation 12,5 on Linux or Windows into Fusion?

If yes, how to do it?

Thank you in advance for your time and advice.

Fnux.

[wila]

Hello,

Happy New Year to you too.

This is certainly possible.

Best practices are:

- disconnect any connected external resources such as CDrom

- shut down your VM (suspend on Workstation and then resume on Fusion might not work without issues as the CPU is likely to be different)

- if you have snapshots then beware that if there's a snapshot that had the VM running at the time the above issue also is a problem when you want to restore it and as such it is recommended to commit all snapshots.

Then on opening the VM in Fusion answer with "Move" on the question "did you copy or move" as the answer copy will generate new virtual hardware and hardware ID's.

If you are planning to run the VM on both Workstation and Fusion then you might have to select copy instead.

--

Wil

[Dumby]

Hi Will,

Thank you for your post.

However, if I totally agree with the process, I've a big problem.

When I copy the VM created by VMware Workstation 12.5,2 to a new folder, if I try to open it with Fusion 8,5,3, I can't see from Fusion any VM file to be used.

VMware Workstation creates several files and especially the .vmdx virtual hard drive when Fusion creates a single .vmwarevm file.

So, that's why I asked how to import or MIGRATE a VM from Workstation to Fusion.

ANy hint on this will be truly appreciated.

Best regards.

[RDPetruska · Accepted solution]

Ahh, Apple's UI as your enemy.

The *.vmwarevm is not a file, but a folder.  it is the top-level folder containing all those files Workstation/Player creates.  Just browse inside the folder to the *.vmx file and open that.  Or rename the folder to add the .vmwarevm extension to it.

[Mikero]

This is the correct answer. The VMs are interchangeable without modification. On the Mac we associate .vmwarevm to be opened in Fusion, which just goes into the bundle/package/folder, reads the .vmx file and starts the VM from there.
So, either rename the folder to have a .vmwarevm extension or open the .vmx file within that folder, same difference from Fusion's perspective.

[Dumby]

Hi RDPetruska,

Thank you for your note.

I'm a brand new user of iMac (a week or so) and could not imagine that this ,vmwarevm file (with a nice icon) was a folder since,I'll  when you double click on it, that just run the VM.

So I went into the forlder using the terminal (I'm more a Linux user) and found what you said.

So, I'll copy my complete Workstation VM folders to my main Fusion 8,3,5 folder and I'll apply the Will proposal.

Then I'll be back to say if this solved my problem.

One again, thank you.

Best regards.