Win Serv 2003 requires activation/registration after Converter..

[dmyles]

I attempted to convert a physical Server 2003 machine to a VM. The conversion went fine. When I brought up the converted VM it booted fine and when I logged in it says that Windows needs to be activated and to hit yes/no/cancel. I hit yes but it doesn't activate. I just sits there. It doesn't look like the guest OS has an IP address from the description of the VM on my VC server. This is really strange. I can't do anything and can't get to the new desktop until I activate but it just sits there and doesn't activate.

I did a P2V conversion on a test server and it worked fine. But not on this production server.

Any thoughts?

[TomHowarth]

I attempted to convert a physical Server 2003 machine to a VM. The conversion went fine. When I brought up the converted VM it booted fine and when I logged in it says that Windows needs to be activated and to hit yes/no/cancel. I hit yes but it doesn't activate. I just sits there. It doesn't look like the guest OS has an IP address from the description of the VM on my VC server. This is really strange. I can't do anything and can't get to the new desktop until I activate but it just sits there and doesn't activate.

I did a P2V conversion on a test server and it worked fine. But not on this production server.

Any thoughts?

as you probally know when you do a conversion, the hardware of the machine changes, now if the machine is running on an OEM licence this will trigger activation, if you have the necessary licence to lawfuly license the machine, click no, and then attempt to do it manually. it also looks like you do not have a NIC card in the machine.

Tom Howarth

VMware Communities User Moderator

[dmyles]

Thanks. I'll try that. After the conversion it did install the VMTools but I just can't tell anything about the IP address. In VC it shows 0.0.0.0 as the IP so that makes me think something isn't going right. If the P2V conversion did it right the server should be identical with the same static IP. I'll try to hit No and call in the activation.

[Patrick_Miller]

The server will not have the same static IP after the conversion. Once you install VMware Tools, a new network device is added, and needs to be setup again.

[dmyles]

Ah. Interesting. But, assuming I shut the original physical server down I can reuse that original IP, correct?

[Patrick_Miller]

Sure thing. If you didn't remove the old NIC from device manager, you will get a warning when setting the static IP on the newly installed VMware NIC. Basically complains about two adapters sharing the same IP address...just tell it Yes, you want to continue.

To remove the old hardware, follow these steps:

1.) Open a command prompt.

2.) Type DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1. This command will allow device manager to show all hardware that was in use before the P2V.

3.) Type DEVMGMT.MSC to open the device manager console

4.) Delete old hardware. These devices will have a faded icon in the device list.

[dmyles]

Thanks. I'll do that if/when I can actually get the server activated and get to the desktop!

[Patrick_Miller]

Not a problem...good luck in your activation journey!!