Virtualization Nation: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About P2V But Were Afraid to Ask

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Q: Does SCVMM replace VSMT? A: Pretty much yes. VSMT still works, but is not going to get an update. Now is a good time to switch to SCVMM :-)

Q: Is P2V in SCVMM "fire and forget"? A: Most Beta customers found that the convert-physical-server wizard yielded VMs that didn't need any "fixup" and did not require downtime. As a best practice, many go through the VM post-conversion and remove vendor-specific (no longer needed) hardware utilities and drivers. In the Beta, most customers who had any issues with P2V conversion fixed them by updating the source machine so that it had all current updates and patches, then retrying P2V. So, best practice reccomendation: ensure your source machine is up-to-date before P2V. Bad sectors on disk cannot be transferred during a P2V conversion. To avoid data loss, it is recommended that you run a disk maintenance tool such as Chkdsk on the source machine to detect and correct any file system errors before initiating the P2V process.
If you are going to do an offline conversion (the source machine is restarted into WinPE to image the hard disks), WAIK must be installed on the VMM server. To download the WAIK, go to https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=86477.

Q: How much does it cost to P2V? A: Most P2V solutions charge a license fee per conversion. SCVMM allows you to convert an unlimited number of source machines that are running Windows 2000, 2003, and Windows XP. You can find the evaluation version here:https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=d4e8bc52-3c3b-4bae-b937-987da892fad7&displaylang=en. How many machines can you convert in 120 days?

Q: Does SCVMM convert VMware virtual machines (V2V)? A: Yes. See Virtualization Nation: How to V2V

Q: Can I convert a server that is not domain-joined? A: No, SCVMM P2V requires that the source machine is a member of a domain.

Q: What are the source machine requirements? A: Minimum 512 MB of RAM, and one of the following supported operating systems:

  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Server with Service Pack 4 (SP4)
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1 (SP1) or later
  • Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 or later
  • Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 1 (SP1) or later

If you are going to do an offline conversion (the source machine is restarted into WinPE to image the hard disks), WAIK must be installed on the VMM server. To download the WAIK, go to https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=86477.

Q: Um, how do I do a P2V? A: See How to P2V

Q: One last thing, what happens if I get into trouble with P2V? A: Check the troubleshoting guide here: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=83589 

A general TS tip is: find the source of the error using the Jobs view. Open the Jobs view, select a job, and click on the Change Tracking tab in the details pane. Then navigate down the jobs until you find the job where the Status property changed from the Thing You Want, such changing from "Responding" to 'Not Responding'. Once you find this job, click on the Summary tab of the details pane to understand the soruce of the trouble. If we have done our job reasonably well, once you see the source, the fix should be pretty self-evident and easy.