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Published
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September 18, 2008 |
Last Updated |
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September 18, 2008 |
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Introduction |
You have created your virtual
machines previously with Microsoft Virtual PC or MS Virtual
Server 2005, and now you want to start working with
Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V. You want to move your
virtual machines to the new server and start using them
with Hyper-V ? Well in this article I'm going to show
you the steps required in order to
successfully migrate your virtual machines from Virtual
PC 2007 to Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V.
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Note : When Windows Server 2008
was RTM,
Hyper-V at that time was still in Beta. So make sure that you download and install the
RTM version of Hyper-V , get it from here :
Hyper-V RTM
As you know, a virtual machine
consist mainly of two files, a .vmc and a .vhd files.
The .vmc file is the configuration file for the virtual
machine, whereas the .vhd file is the virtual hard disk
that is connected to the .vmc file.
I have created a virtual machine
using Virtual PC 2007, and installed on it Windows XP with
Service Pack 2. To move this virtual machine to Windows
Server 2008 Hyper-V, we will only need its virtual hard
disk file (.vhd), but before doing this, we need to
follow the below steps :
-
Install the required
Service Pack
Make sure to install the latest or at least
the minimal required service pack for the guest
(child)
operating system that you are planning to migrate to
Hyper-V. For example, if you want to migrate a guest
virtual machine with Windows XP x86 SP1, then you
will need to at least have to update it
to Service Pack 2 (VM configured with 1-virtual
processors only). Do not forget to read the
Hyper-V Supported Guest Operating Systems
-
Remove the VM additions from the virtual
machine before you move it over to Hyper-V Server
Using the Add/Remove Programs
Control
Panel
applet, Uninstall
Virtual Machine Additions

From the list of currently installed
programs, select the virtual machine additions and
click on Remove. Click on Yes to confirm the removal
of the Virtual Machine additions.

Once the Virtual Machines Additions are removed you
will receive a notification box to restart your
machine, Click No and then Shut Down the Virtual
Machine. We are now ready to copy/move the Virtual
Hard Disk (vhd) to Hyper-V.

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Copy/Move the Virtual Hard Disk (.vhd) file to the Hyper-V
Server.
As you know, the virtual machine that was
used with Virtual PC has a virtual hard disk, we
need to take this virtual hard disk (vhd) and use it
with Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V. We need to do
nothing with the Virtual Machine itself (vmc). Once
the migration is successfully accomplished, and you
plan to no more use the Virtual PC application, you
can safely delete the .vmc file that was used with
virtual pc, as with Hyper-V we will be creating a
new virtual machine.

I have copied the vhd file to the D
partition : D:\Hyper-V\WINXP_VPC
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Create the new virtual machine in Hyper-V
and attach it to the VHD copied/moved in the
previous step.
Note :
If you have not installed Hyper-V yet, then
read my article
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To
open Hyper-V, click on Start >
Administrative Tools >
Hyper-V Manager

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To Create a new virtual machine, From
the Menu Bar, click on Action >
New > Virtual Machine,
or from the right side pane, click on New > Virtual
Machine

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On the Before You Begin
page, click Next

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On the Specify Name and
Location page, type a name for the Virtual
Machine, as for the location where the virtual
machine will be stored, either keep the default
location as shown, or select the checkbox beside
Store the virtual machine in a different
location, change it to another path and
then Click Next. I will name the
virtual machines as WINXP_VPC and will store it in
the D drive inside the Hyper-V\WINXP_VPC folder.

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On the Assign Memory
page, specify the amount of memory to allocate to
this virtual machine. Click Next

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Select a Virtual Network from the
drop down list on the Configure Networking
page. You can keep the virtual machine
disconnected by not selecting any Virtual Network
and later on you can attach a Network adapter to it,
Click Next

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For Every Virtual Machine, you will
need to connect it to a Virtual Hard Disk, on the
Connect Virtual Hard Disk page, we
will use the virtual hard disk that we copied
earlier to the
D:\Hyper-V\WINXP_VPC folder. You can do this by
selecting Use an existing virtual hard disk,
click on Browse and select the
WINXP_VPC.vhd file
located inside
D:\Hyper-V\WINXP_VPC as seen below then click
Next

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On the Completing the New
Virtual Machine Wizard page, review the new
virtual machine settings
and then click Finish. if you want
to start the virtual machine, you can either do this
by selecting the checkbox beside Start the
virtual machine after it is created and
then click on Finish

or you can select it from the
Hyper-V Manager console, right click on it
and click on Start

To open the Virtual Machine, right click on it and
choose Connect

- Install
the Integration Services
Integration Services improve integration between the
virtualization server and the virtual machine(s).
For example, mouse can't move outside of the virtual
machine window except you press Ctrl+Alt+Left Arrow keys.
To install the Integration Services, from the
Action menu,
click on
Insert the Integration Services Setup Disk.
If Autorun does not start the
installation automatically, you can start it
manually navigating to the CD drive > right click on
it and select AutoPlay.

Multiple drivers will be installed as shown below


once the Integration services installation is
completed, you will be prompted to restart the
virtual machine, click Yes

Congrats ! We are done now and have
successfully migrated a guest virtual machine from
Virtual PC to Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V.
Summary
In a matter of minutes,
virtual machines created with Virtual PC or Virtual
Server 2005 can be migrated to Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V.
To be on the safe side,
set a test machine and test your migrated virtual
machine before relying on the converted virtual machines
in a production environment.
Related Links
VMC to Hyper-V Import
Tool
Download Hyper-V RTM
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