VMware® vCenter Converter Standalone provides an easy-to-use solution that automates the process of creating VMware virtual machines from physical machines (running Windows and Linux) and from other virtual machine formats.
Actually the most recent version remain the Converter 6.6 updated on Feb, 22 2024.
Considering that one of my most requested article was VMware Converter guest OS support, I decide to make an updated version.
If you need to converter an old OS you probably need an old version of the vCenter Standalone Converter, but then you may have another issue. Because your vSphere platform may be not supported you have to save the conversion in an intermediate Workstation/Fusion/Player file format and then re-import again with a more recent version of Converter (or manually register the VM file, if you have choose a right format for the vmdk).
This table summarize the compatibility list for the different type of Converter and the different type of guest OSes (I’ll consider only Converter from version 5):
| Converter 5.0.1 | Converter 5.1.2 | Converter 5.5.3 | Converter 6.0.0 | Converter 6.3 | Converter 6.4 | Converter 6.6 | |
| Windows Server 2022 | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Windows Server 2019 | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Windows Server 2016 | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Windows Server 2012 R2 | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Windows Server 2012 | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Windows Server 2008 R2 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Windows Server 2008 (32 and 64-bit) | SP2 | SP2 | SP2 | SP2 | No | No | No |
| Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2 (32 and 64-bit) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Windows Server 2003 (32 and 64-bit) | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| Windows 2000 Server (32-bit) | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| Windows 11 | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Windows 10 (32 and 64-bit) | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Windows 8.1 (32 and 64-bit) | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Windows 8 (32 and 64-bit) | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Windows 7 (32 and 64-bit) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Windows Vista (32 and 64-bit) | SP2 | SP2 | SP2 | SP2 | No | No | No |
| Windows XP Pro (32 and 64-bit) | SP3 | SP3 | SP3 | No | No | No | No |
| Windows 2000 Pro (32-bit) | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.x | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.x | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.x | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.x (32 and 64-bit) | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.x (32 and 64-bit) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.x (32 and 64-bit) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.x (32 and 64-bit) | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| CentOS 8.0 | No | No | No | No | No | No | ? |
| CentOS 7.0 | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| CentOS 6.x (32 and 64-bit) | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11.x (32 and 64-bit) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10.x (32 and 64-bit) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9.x (32 and 64-bit) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 8.x (32 and 64-bit) | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| Ubuntu 22.04 LTS | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Ubuntu 20.04 LTS | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Ubuntu 18.04 LTS | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (32-bit and 64-bit) | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Ubuntu 14.0.4 (32 and 64-bit) | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Ubuntu 13.x (32 and 64-bit) | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Ubuntu 12.x (32 and 64-bit) | No | Yes | Yes | 12.04 | No | No | No |
| Ubuntu 11.x (32 and 64-bit) | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
| Ubuntu 10.x (32 and 64-bit) | Yes | Yes | 10.04 LTS | No | No | No | No |
About the compatibility across VMware vSphere and the Standalone Converter you can use this table:
| Converter 5.0.1 | Converter 5.1.2 | Converter 5.5.3 | Converter 6.0.0 | Converter 6.2 | Converter 6.3 | Converter 6.4 | Converter 6.6 | |
| vSphere 8 | No | No | No | No | No | No | Only 8.0.0 | Yes |
| vSphere 7 | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| vSphere 6.7 | No | No | No | No | Only 6.7,U1 | Only 6.7U3 | No | No |
| vSphere 6.5 | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| vSphere 6.0 | No | No | No | Only 6.0,U1 | Yes | No | No | No |
| vSphere 5.5 | No | No | Only 5.5,U1,U2 | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
Note that actually seems that VMware vSphere 8.0 Update 3 is not supported. For more information see the Product Interoperability Matrix.
