vCenter

What's the best way to P2V a Windows XP machine?  I see the standalone converter doesn't list that as a supported guest OS.  Unfortunately the software on the machine isn't available anymore so I'm trying to be as un-intrusive as possible so as not to cause any issues with the machine; just want to be able to have a working full backup of the machine in the event the hardware goes. 

Try the Converter 6.2 even is not listed as supported OS because it's EOL it should works.

HTH

You can use this one for Xp:

VMware-converter-en-6.0.0-2716716.exe

Every time I've used it (Xp is same codebase as 2003), I never got any issues.

There's also no destructive loss should a P2V fail.

You'll always have the original physical box to uninstall the converter, re-install perhaps another build, and try it yet again.

There's really no need to do a cold conversion, where you shut down the box and boot off an .iso or PE to run the P2V. First, those builds were really old. And the live converters have gotten more reliable.

Is it possible to get that VMware-converter-en-6.0.0-2716716.exe anywhere still?  VMWare doesn't allow older versions to be downloaded and not being able to convert an XP is crippling my progress.  The newest 6.2 doesn't work on any XP machines I've tried.