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VMware vCenter Converter Standalone provides an easy-to-use solution to automate the process of creating VMware virtual machines from physical machines (running Windows and Linux), other virtual machine formats, and third-party image formats. Through an intuitive wizard-driven interface and a centralized management console, Converter Standalone can quickly and reliably convert multiple local and remote physical machines without any disruptions or downtime.

It was (and still it is) one of the most used tools to perform Physical to Virtual (P2V) activities.

Some weeks ago, VMware has released the VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 6.0 (2015-05-14 | 6.0.0) that fully support VMware vSphere 6.0 (previous version of Converter are NOT supported on the new release of vSphere).

You can install VMware Converter Standalone 6.0 on the following platforms:

  • Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2 (32-bit and 64-bit)
  • Windows Vista SP2 (32-bit and 64-bit)
  • Windows Server 2008 SP2 (32-bit and 64-bit)
  • Windows Server 2008 R2
  • Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit)
  • Windows 8 (32-bit and 64-bit)
  • Windows 8.1 (32-bit and 64-bit)
  • Windows Server 2012
  • Windows Server 2012 R2

As you can notice, Windows Server 2003 R2 is still supported (but remember that is going to end-of-support soon), of course also as a guest OS for the conversion.

But not that the supported “guest OS” are mostly recent, and you may need an old Converter in order to make a P2V (or a V2V) operation with:

  • Windows versions older than Windows Server 2003 R2 (for the servers) or Vista (for the client XP support has stopped one year ago)
  • RedHat RHEL versions older than RHEL 4.x
  • CentOS versions older than CentOS 6.x
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server version older than 9.x
  • Other old OSes

Converter Standalone 6.0 supports the following sources.

  • Physical machine running an operating system noted in Supported Guest Operating Systems
  • VMware Desktop products
    • Workstation 10.x and 11.0
    • Fusion 6.x and 7.0
    • Player 6.x and 7.0
  • VMware vCenter virtual machines
    • vSphere 6.0
    • vSphere 5.5, 5.1, 5.0
    • vSphere 4.1, 4.0
  • Third-party backup images and virtual machines – to be discontinued. See Support notice.
    • Acronis True Image Echo 9.1 and 9.5, and Acronis True Image Home 10 and 11 (.tib)
    • Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery (formerly LiveState Recovery) 6.5, 7.0, 8.0, and 8.5, and LiveState Recovery 3.0 and 6.0 (.sv2i format only)
    • Norton Ghost version 10.0, 12.0, and 14.0 (.sv2i format only)
    • Parallels Desktop 2.5, 3.0, and 4.0 (.pvs and .hdd). Compressed disks are not supported
    • Parallels Workstation 2.x (.pvs). Compressed disks are not supported. Parallels Virtuozzo Containers are not supported.
    • StorageCraft ShadowProtect Desktop, ShadowProtect Server, ShadowProtect Small Business Server (SBS), ShadowProtect IT Edition, versions 2.0, 2.5, 3.0, 3.1, and 3.2 (.spf)
    • The Microsoft VHD format for the following sources:
      • Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 and Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 (.vmc)
      • Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 and 2005 R2 (.vmc)

Depending on the selected source, you can convert it to the following destinations.

  • VMware vCenter virtual machines
    • ESX 4.0 and 4.1
    • ESXi 4.0, 4.1, 5.0, 5.1, 5.5 and 6.0
    • vCenter Server 4.0, 4.1, 5.0, 5.1, 5.5 and 6.0
  • VMware Desktop virtual machines
    • VMware Workstation 10.x and 11.0
    • VMware Player 6.x and 7.0
    • VMware Fusion 6.x and 7.0

What’s New

The VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 6.0 provides:

  • Support for virtual machine hardware version 11.
  • Compatibility with vSphere 6.0 and Workstation 11.
  • Support for additional guest operating systems: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, Ubuntu 14, CentOS 6-7, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows 8.1.
  • Support of pure IPv6 environments.
  • Proxy mode.
  • File-level cloning for volumes with ReFS file system.
  • Support for XFS file system.
  • Support for predictable network interface names.

Note that VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 6.0 will be the last release of the product to support third-party backup images and virtual machines as sources for conversion. This capability will be discontinued in the next release. If you use this capability, you should start planning your transition.

For more information see also:

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Virtualization, Cloud and Storage Architect. Tech Field delegate. VMUG IT Co-Founder and board member. VMware VMTN Moderator and vExpert 2010-24. Dell TechCenter Rockstar 2014-15. Microsoft MVP 2014-16. Veeam Vanguard 2015-23. Nutanix NTC 2014-20. Several certifications including: VCDX-DCV, VCP-DCV/DT/Cloud, VCAP-DCA/DCD/CIA/CID/DTA/DTD, MCSA, MCSE, MCITP, CCA, NPP.