moving a VM between Mac and Windows

[avery1]

I have a windows 7 guest VM sitting on Mac OS 10.6, using VMware fusion 3.0.

Is the guest VM file portable, such that I could take it to a windows-based host running VMware (workstation, I assume)?

Thanks!

[weinstein5]

Welcome to the Forums - yes it is - I would export it out of fusion as an OVF and then import into VMware workstation or even ESX/VMware Server/player  for that matter

If you find this or any other answer helpful please consider awarding points

[avery1]

Thanks David. What would be the advantage of doing the export as an OVF instead of just copying over the file for the VM -- or is this a required step?

[weinstein5]

There is a way to manually move it over but I always forget the steps - exporting to OVF and then importing it into workstation works so smothly - 

[avery1]

Alright, thanks.

I know that I can currently copy VMs between my desktop and laptop without any issues, but given the product and platform change, it sounds like the export is a no-brainer.

[Troy_Clavell]

I know that I can currently copy VMs between my desktop and laptop without any issue

This method will work just as well, as the hosted platforms can move between each other just fine.

[continuum · Accepted solution]

> What would be the advantage of doing the export as an OVF instead of  just copying over the file for the VM

There is no advantage unless you get paid per hour - exporting via ovf takes 3 steps - copying the complete directory or package is just one step

via ovf:
1. export to ovf
2. copy via network or portable disk to new host
3.import from ovf

without ovf
1. copy via network or portable disk to new host

before you start the VM first time - open vmx-file with notepad and adjust MAC-typical paths to Windows-style

[avery1]

Thanks guys -- very helpful.

[Zorroson]

Hi,

Sorry about hijacking this thread, but how about the other way around?

Being a virgin Mac owner, I would like to know if can move my Windows VMWare Workstation 7 guests (a mix of WinXP, 2K3 and W7 guests) to VMWare Fusion on Mac OS 10.6?

From what I can tell in VMWare Workstation 7, I can export my Virtual Machines as OVF packages - will/should they work in VMware Fusion after import?

Cheers,

Zorroson

[WoodyZ]

There is no need to export to OVF and all you need to do is literally copy the VM to the Mac and execute the .vmx (VMware virtual machine configuration) file.  You also can add a .vmwarevm extension to each folder that contains a single Virtual Machine to turn it into a Document Package so it will act and handle like a normal default file based Virtual Machine created by VMware Fusion, although it's not necessary to add the extension to use Virtual Machines created under other VMware Desktop Products.

[Zorroson]

Sounds very, very nice! Thanx for the prompt response!

Cheers,

Zorroson

[mmarofsky]

Will this affect the Windows Licensing?

I have noticed lately that, depending on which PC/MAC I run a VM from, the hardware can change, which can mess with Win7 licensing.

[wila]

Hi,

It mostly depends on your CPU in the host, if the CPU is considerably different then your Windows VM might consider that a big change.

Also note that you _always_ should select "move" and not "copy" on the question "Did you move or copy the VM?" that you get when opening the VM for the first time as otherwise your VM will get a new set of hardware ID's.

--

Wil

[ColoradoMarmot]

And one other things - shut down (not suspect) the VM, and remove any snapshots before moving.

[mmarofsky]

Thanks.  Would be nice if a virtual machine really was virtual and not tied so much to the host.

[ColoradoMarmot]

There's no way to do that - the CPU and memory dump created in a suspended VM is specific to the host OS and physical platform.

You can preserve snapshots taken when the VM is shut down completely, but that can be fiddly and take a long time to process (after deleting the running ones).