So what’s new?

• Physical to virtual machine conversion support for Linux (RHEL, SUSE and Ubuntu) as source
• Physical to virtual machine conversion support for Windows Server 2008 as source
• Hot cloning improvements to clone any incremental changes to physical machine during the P2V conversion process
• Support for converting new third-party image formats including Parallels Desktop virtual machines, newer versions of Symantec, Acronis, and StorageCraft
• Workflow automation enhancements to include automatic source shutdown, automatic start-up of the destination virtual machine as well as shutting down one or more services at the source and starting up selected services at the destination
• Target disk selection and the ability to specify how the volumes are laid out in the new destination virtual machine
• Destination virtual machine configuration, including CPU, memory, and disk controller type

I think especially the hot cloning improvement, which copies incremental changes, and the workflow automation are really cool features. These are the kind of enhancements that will make your life a lot easier during migration projects.

connect-viserver MYVISERVER
$myCol = @()
ForEach ($VM in (Get-VM))
{
$MyDetails = “” | select-Object Name, HAL, NumvCPU
$MYDetails.Name = $VM.Name
$Hal = Get-WmiObject -ComputerName $VM.Name -Query “SELECT * FROM Win32_PnPEntity where ClassGuid = ‘{4D36E966-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}’” | Select Name
$MYDetails.HAL = $Hal.Name
$MYDetails.NumvCPU = $VM.NumCPU
$myCol += $MYDetails
}
$myCol

@echo off

RIVER_HAL_UPDATE
SET HAL=

IF %NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS%==1 (
devcon.exe /find @ROOT\ACPI_HAL\0000 | find /i “Multiprocessor” > NUL && SET HAL=ACPIAPIC_UP
devcon.exe /find @ROOT\PCI_HAL\0000 | find /i “Multiprocessor” > NUL && SET HAL=MPS_UP
) ELSE (
devcon.exe /find @ROOT\ACPI_HAL\0000 | find /i “Uniprocessor” > NUL && SET HAL=ACPIAPIC_MP
devcon.exe /find @ROOT\PCI_HAL\0000 | find /i “Uniprocessor” > NUL && SET HAL=MPS_MP
)

IF NOT “%HAL%”==”" (
ECHO.
ECHO —————————————-
ECHO Installing %HAL% HAL
ECHO —————————————-
ECHO.

devcon.exe sethwid @ROOT\PCI_HAL\0000 := !E_ISA_UP !ACPIPIC_UP !ACPIAPIC_UP !ACPIAPIC_MP !MPS_UP !MPS_MP !SGI_MPS_MP !SYSPRO_MP !SGI_MPS_MP
devcon.exe sethwid @ROOT\ACPI_HAL\0000 := !E_ISA_UP !ACPIPIC_UP !ACPIAPIC_UP !ACPIAPIC_MP !MPS_UP !MPS_MP !SGI_MPS_MP !SYSPRO_MP !SGI_MPS_MP
devcon.exe sethwid @ROOT\PCI_HAL\0000 := +%HAL%
devcon.exe sethwid @ROOT\ACPI_HAL\0000 := +%HAL%
devcon.exe update %windir%\inf\hal.inf %HAL%
devcon.exe ReScan

ECHO.
ECHO —————————————-
ECHO Rebooting
ECHO —————————————-
ECHO.
devcon.exe Reboot
) ELSE (
ECHO.
ECHO —————————————-
ECHO Correct HAL Detected
ECHO —————————————-
ECHO.
)
GOTO :EOF

There’s a topic on VMTN about this, read it. You need the Microsoft DevCon util, which is part of the support tools, for more info on devcon click here. Mike Laverick’s paper can be found here. Thanks for pointing this out Xing.

1. Boot from Suse CD
2. Select to setup a new system
3. Select to boot from the currently installed OS
4. Run Yast and configure the correct SCSI controller
5. Remove all the NICS and configure a new NIC
6. Install VMware tools

This is caused by hidden devices which should be removed:

1. Start a CMD in the specific VM
2. type “set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1″
3. start “devmgmt.msc”
4. Click on “View” and select “Show Hidden Devices”
5. Uninstall all grayed out devices