New to VMware Workstation and Converter Standalone - Need Help

[RBryan]

First time user of these products and virtualization in general.  Attempting to convert an old WinXP physical machine to a virtual machine to be run to a new Win 7 machine in a home network environment.  I am able to RDT from the Win 7 machine to the WinXP machine where I have disabled the firewall and simple file sharing as instructed by the documentation.

Attempts to run Workstation 8's 'Virtualize a Physical Machine' wizard (from the new Win 7 machine) result in the error message "Unable to contact the speicifed host 'DIMENSION-8250'.  The host might not be available on the network, there might be a network configuration problem, or the management services on this host are not responding."

Also tried to use VMware vCenter Converter Standalone from the Win 7 machine to connect to the WinXP machine but received the error message "Failed to connect to VMware vCenter Converter Standalone server at DIMENSION-8250 on port 56789.  Check your network connection and try again."  Not at all sure if Converter Standalone is an appropriate tool for what I am trying to accomplish.

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

[onoski]

Try enabling the file and print sharing option and also set an exception on the Windows 7 host VM firewall to see if this helps.

[RBryan]

Thanks for trying to help!  File and print sharing options are turned on in the Windows 7 machine as far as I can tell.  Not sure how to set an exception on the Windows 7 VM firewall but firewall is fully disabled as far as I can tell.  Since firewall is managed by Norton 360, I am not able to affect any settings related to built in Windows 7 firewall.

Have made some progress but not there yet.  Turing off more Norton protection such as Antivirus, AntiSpan, and the like (Firewall was already turned off) on the Windows 7 machine seemed to help.

Can now log into the Phyical Machine.  Can also get past the "Store the new Virtual Machine" dialog box.  Next dialog box is "Create a Network Share" which asks for user name and password for your Windows account on this machine.  It automatically fills in "Local Machine Name\User Name" and prompts for local account password.  Pressing the Finish button after entering my password always brings up one or the other of two error boxes as follows:

1) You have entered an incorrect user name or password.

2) A network share could not be created for the "Local Machine Name\User Name" .  The network share is required to receive the virtualized "WinXP Machine Name".  The user account may not have sufficient privileges.

Don't know what to make of this as I have administrator privilege on both machines!  User names and passwords are the same ones I use to log in with.

Any ideas on how to get past this barrier would be appreciated.

[RBryan]

:smileycry:  I'm still out here trying to get VMware Workstation 8 to work.  Apparently VMware Workstation can not create the network share (I assume this is a directory on my Win 7 maching into which the VM from the Win XP physical machine will be placed but I'm to sure as I'm not fluent in VM speak).  In any case I am an Administrator on both machines so I'm not sure how to get myself more privileges.  The errorr message is shown below:

Norton 360 is now uninstalled on both machines and the Windows firewalls on both mechines are disabled.  I'm running VMware Workstation as an Administrator.  I've tried to do the virtulization with Simple File and Printer Sharing in the Win XP maching both turned on and turned off.  It doesn't care as I get the same error message either way.

Seems like what I am trying to is conceptually simple and would be a common objective among computer users.  Its hard to believe this should be so difficult.  Am I approaching this in the correct way?  Does anyone have any ideas as to what might be blocking this from working?  Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[stiger]

Hello,

Please try to disable User Account Control (UAC) on your Windows 7 host (see the help article "VMware Workstation Help : Creating Virtual Machines in Workstation : Virtualize a Physical Machine").

Thanks.

[RBryan]

Thanks for the suggestion.  Disabling User Account Control on my Win 7 host did seem to get me further into the virtulization process.  I am now able to avoid the error message shown in my 8/24/12 posting.  After entering my password into the "Virtulize a Physical Machine" dialog box, a "Starting the Virtulization of dimension-8250" message box appears.  It remains in place for about 30 seconds and as the first green progress bar appears it is replaced by the error box shown below:

                                                     

Apparently I don't have sufficient privileges on the Win XP machine.  By the way, I received this error message with Simple File and Printer Sharing both turned on and turned off.  The firewall on the Win XP machine is disabled and believe I have full administrative privileges on the Win XP machine.

Any suggestion as to how I might deal with this message would be appreciated.

[Scorpion99]

Try to use "administrator" account on both accounts. And create a shared folder on both with the right permissions.

When trying to access the network share , write as the follow :

computer_name\administrator    

Where computer_name is yours of course

On windows 7 , you can simply enable the administrator account using the following command :

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/enable-the-hidden-administrator-account-on-windows-vist...

[RBryan]

Thanks for the suggestions.  Enabled the administrator account on the Win 7 machine as described in the link you provided.  Started using the administrator account on the Win XP machine to be virtulized.  Also set up a network share folder on the Win 7 machine.  You also suggested I set up a share folder on the Win XP maching but I'm not sure how it relates to the process, thus I'm not sure where to place this shared folder or where I would refer to in during the virtulization process.  Can you elaborate?

Once the "Starting the Virtulization of dimension-8250" message box appears I can see virtual disk files being generated in my Win 7 share folder. Specifically I see 140 numbered files of 320 kB each appear in a newly created subdirectory of my share directory.  These files appear as soon as the "Starting the Virtulization ..." message box appears, and they remain until the error message appears, at which time they disapper as quicly as they had appeared.

Still looking for ideas!

[RBryan]

Attempted to perform the virtulization of Win XP machined by running Converter Standalone on Win 7 machine using adminstrator account on both machines as previously recommended.  Destination directory seems to be accessable to both accounts. Virtulizatioin process appears to start by quickly terminates at 1% with error message "Unable to create VSS snapshot of the source volumn(s).  Error code 2147754776 (0x80042318).

Not sure what to make of this.  Any comments would be welcomed.  Thanks.