Windows in VMWare on Debian Etch: any Gotchas?

oldtlhingan · 02-13-2008, 09:07 PM

I'd like to make my wife happy by keeping her Windows environment, but I'd also like to move her gradually into Linux. My plan is to build a VMWare Windows environment on Etch. Question is: Has anyone been able to recover a full backup of their Windows setup (extra programs and all) onto the newly installed VMWare Windows setup? Or do I really have to go thru all the updates and patches and add-ons and crap to get the "pristine" just-off-the-disk virtual install up to the current state she expects?

lycan · 02-14-2008, 12:53 PM

As far I know, backup of original windows does not work in viryual machine, You have to go through the whole process from scratch.

makyo · 02-14-2008, 02:58 PM

Hi.

There is this item:

Quote:

Convert Physical Machines to Virtual Machines – Free!

Use the intuitive wizard-driven interface of VMware Converter to convert your physical machines to virtual machines. VMware Converter quickly converts Microsoft Windows based physical machines and third party image formats to VMware virtual machines. It also converts virtual machines between VMware platforms. Automate and simplify physical to virtual machine conversions as well as conversions between virtual machine formats with VMware Converter.

http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/

I have a VMware box with Etch as the host, and I installed Windows 2000 Pro from scratch on it as a guest recently. It went very smoothly, and the VMware-toolbox install was far easier compared to installing it on a Linux guest.

However, the converter looks like it could save a lot of work -- provided it does the job correctly.

There is also a step-by-step at:

Quote:

Convert Physical Windows Systems Into Virtual Machines To Be Run On A Linux Desktop

http://www.howtoforge.com/vmware_con..._windows_linux

I'll be interested to hear of your progress ... cheers, makyo

farslayer · 02-14-2008, 03:30 PM

The only issue with the converter I think, would be if you had a LOT of programs and bloat on the windows machine. Your vmware image could end up being HUGE !!! For that reason alone you may want to consider a fresh clean install to the VM. I Dunno about you, but I had Hundreds of gigs worth of applications and data on my old windows box.

I guess it depends on how much of your Linux Hard Drive you are willing to sacrifice to the vmware image for that windows machine

oldtlhingan · 02-16-2008, 08:57 PM

thanks folks - update: VMware Converter did the job sweet and easy, instructions were right on. BUT:
farslayer is right - my Win2k image is close to 50Gb. I installed vmplayer on my debian machine and tried to load the image off the windows machine thru the network - PLONK - The file is larger than 2Gb. Won't play.

How do i get debian to work with larger files? I use ext3 filesystem.

makyo · 02-16-2008, 10:26 PM

Hi.

Page 3 of the step-by-step on the Import Wizard illustrates a check-box for splitting the disks into 2 GB files, similar to the process for creating new virtual machines. Was that not there in your version? ... cheers, makyo

oldtlhingan · 02-16-2008, 10:52 PM

yes it was there - i didnt check it when i created my first image, i only checked the option to allow the disk size to grow as the instructions said this is usually a good choice. I didnt expect to have this problem

I will create another image, but this time I'll check that box; will post results asap. Thank You!

oldtlhingan · 02-18-2008, 12:06 PM

OK. As instructed, i checked the important box to split the disks into 2GB chunks. I now have a wonderful clone! Talk about gotchas

Thanks everyone.