Where can I get help in figuring out how to transfer (virtualize?) my old PC onto my new Mac?

[Logan_Carlisle]

Here's the question: How in the heck can I get help figuring out how to get my PC to be on my Mac via Fusion? I am absolutely incapable of following the basic instructions on the VMware site. After hours of frustration, I realized I didn't even know how to attempt to do (what I imagine are basic) things necessary to go from one step to another. I feel complete lost and quite stupid. I can't even articulate what I don't know or what specific help I need--I'm totally lost! I would gladly go to a vendor today and pay $100 just to have someone do the transfer for me. Is there any help (or hope) for someone in my situation? I naively thought this would all be doable in a couple of hours. Unfortunately, I needed to have the computer ready before a deadline on the 30th of this month. If anyone knows how/where I can get immediate help, I would very much appreciate the information.

Back story: I am so embarrassed by my complete lack of knowledge and ability with regard to computers. After years of waiting, I finally bought a new Mac to replace the old one on which I completed 6 years of graduate school. Besides needing a new computer that could be used--hard--for several years to come, I purchased a new Mac with more memory and speed so that I might be able to run my old PC laptop stuff on it as well. My PC is a Toshiba laptop with Windows 7 on it. It has lots of documents and settings that I want to preserve and use as they are. Specifically, I have been working on documenting an extinct language by means of a dictionary-making program that does not run on Macs, but I prefer to work on my Mac and hate the PC.

[ColoradoMarmot]

The general recommendation to this is, don't do it.  Two reasons:  First, if the copy of windows that you have on your PC came with it, you can't legally virtualize it.  That means you have to buy a copy of windows anyway.  Once you do that, you're almost always better off building a virtual machine from scratch and reinstalling your software and documents.  Converting a PC results in a bloated, buggy, unstable virtual machine.

If you decide to take the risk, the best option is to download the standalone VMWare Converter, plug in a USB external drive into the PC, and use it to create a virtual machine (doing it from a live PC across the wire often fails).  Then you can just plug the external drive into the mac and copy the virtual machine to that hard drive.

Here's the link to the converter:  Download VMware vCenter Converter Standalone for P2V Conversion

[Logan_Carlisle]

Thanks. I'm under a real time crunch. I need this stuff done today. I called the local office max, but they said no one carries disks for Windows 7 anymore (much less ANY disks for Windows). I know the freeware I've been using works with Windows 7, but it's an open question whether it'll work with newer stuff. Also, it's my understanding that it's impossible for me to set up a fresh PC virtual machine on the Mac via Fusion without a disk. I guess I shouldn't have wasted $60 in buying VMware Fusion in the first place 😞 Not sure what to do at this point.

[ColoradoMarmot]

It's easy to create a fresh virtual machine - not sure where you heard that from.

Licensing aside, you can use the standalone converter to convert the physical PC - it will probably work, just be bigger than it needs to be, and may be unstable.