Ovftool Download Windows

[Práxedes Jamal]

Foryour particular case have you already created the output directory or not? Try to pre-create it. Also try to run ovftool.exe "as Administrator" to ensure that the process really has the expected permissions.

So I figured that ovftool seems to have challanges parsing the path names ( at least on windows ... and I am guessing owing to a bug . It could be problem dealing with drive names with : and/or reverse slashes ... )

Some great helpers here have shown me the VMWare OVF tool for template deployment. My problem is that the tool itself stops at the "Disk Transfer Completed" step half the time I use it. This seems to be random, and when it happens I have to terminate OVFTool and start the transfer over again. The second attempt usually succeeds.

I had this very problem. I never found a solution. What I did do, is install VMWare Converter, and it worked fine. I never found out what made OVFTool slow... It sucks if you want to script it (since AFAIK there isn't a command line version of converter)...

I use the ovftool all the time and have never noticed this sort of a problem, but I have noticed extreme slowness and the occasional failure when I'm deploying to or pulling from a slow network. What is the network situation like between the system you are running the tool from and the host? The other difference is that I use the ovftool from a linux host and not from a windows machine, is that something you can try to compare the difference?

EDIT: What version of the ovftool is it? What version of Windows are you running it from? Is it a direct connection, or are there routers/firewalls between you and the ESXi server? What version of ESXi is it?

Windows 11 requires TPM 2.0. Running Windows 11 as a virtual machine requires a virtual Trusted Platform Module to be present. For more details on Windows 11 requirements see, -us/windows/whats-new/windows-11-requirements .

Virtual TPM devices require vSphere to be configured with a Key Provider. This is a prerequisite requirement before you can create a new VM with a vTPM device or add a vTPM device to an existing VM. In vSphere 8 and vSphere 7 this can be a Native Key Provider or an external third party key provider. (Native Key Provider requires vSphere 7 U2 or later).

See the documentation links below to configure your respective version of vSphere with an appropriate key provider. The procedure for configuring vSphere to support Windows 11, will depend on which version of vSphere you are running. Please take care to follow the procedure for your version of vSphere.

Installing Windows 11 in a virtual machine on vSphere 8 is almost identical to installing previous versions of Windows. The change is that Windows 11 requires a virtual TPM device to be present in the virtual machine.

When creating a new virtual machine, using the vSphere Client, select virtual machine compatibility with ESXi 8.0 and later (hardware version 20) and choose Microsoft Windows 11 (64-bit) as the Guest OS Version.

Note: The recommended choice for virtual storage controller is VMware Paravirtual SCSI (PVSCSI). Refer to add the PVSCSI driver to Windows ISO or provide the driver to Windows during installation by following process mentioned in the section "To install PVSCSI drivers through CD/DVD drive (Recommended)" of KB

When creating a new virtual machine, using the vSphere Client, select a minimum of virtual machine compatibility with ESXi 6.7 U2 and later (hardware version 15) and choose Microsoft Windows 10 (64-bit) as the Guest OS Version. vSphere 6.7 and vSphere 7 do not currently present Microsoft Windows 11 as a specific Guest OS Version. vSphere 8 and hardware version 20 presents Microsoft Windows 11 (64-bit) as a selectable Guest OS Version.

A Trusted Platform Module device is not a default device and must be added manually during the new VM creation wizard. On the Customize Hardware page, click Add New Device, and select Trusted Platform Module from the list of devices.

Lastly, navigate to the VM Options tab of the Hardware Customization page. Expand Encryption and set both Encrypted vMotion and Encrypted FT settings to Required. Normally this would not be needed and is a known issue. See KB Article 85974 for more details. When using vSphere 8 and hardware version 20, these settings are automatically selected for Windows 11 virtual machines.

When you clone a virtual machine, that contains a vTPM device, the vTPM device and stored secrets are also cloned. This is desired if Windows features utilizing vTPM, such as Windows BitLocker or Windows Hello, are activated but best practice is to ensure that each Windows 11 virtual machine contains a unique vTPM device.

If you remove or replace the vTPM device on a Windows 11 VM using features like Windows BitLocker or Windows Hello, these features will cease functionality and you may lose access to the Windows operating system or data if you are without the appropriate recovery options.

vSphere 8 introduces the TPM Provision Policy. vTPM devices can be automatically replaced during clone or deployment operations. This allows best practices that each VM contain a unique TPM device be followed and improves vSphere support for Windows 11 deployment at scale. vSphere 8.0 also includes the vpxd.clone.tpmProvisionPolicy advanced setting to make the default clone behaviour for vTPMs to be replaced.

When you deploy a virtual machine from a VM template containing a vTPM device, the same caveats apply as when cloning a virtual machine with a vTPM device. The vTPM of the deployed VM is an identical copy of that of the template. In vSphere 8, when deploying Windows 11 VMs from template, the TPM Provision Policy is applied and you can either copy or replace the vTPM device during template deployment. In vSphere 7, you can customize the virtual machine hardware and remove and re-add the vTPM device manually during the template deployment wizard.

Virtual machines with a vTPM device can be stored in the VM Template (VMTX) format. Virtual machines with a vTPM device can be stored in a Content Library, but they must be stored as the VM Template (VMTX) format.

Important: VM Templates with vTPM devices can be deployed from a Content Library. In vSphere 8, currently the default TPM provision policy (copy) is applied and cannot be changed during deployment from a Content Library. The vSphere Client will display a message:

Virtual machines with a vTPM device do not support the OVF/OVA template format directly. It is not supported to export a virtual machine with a vTPM device to an OVF/OVA file using the vSphere Client. The vTPM device must be first removed before you can export the VM as an OVF/OVA template.

Similarly, when importing an OVF/OVA into vSphere using the vSphere Client, a vTPM device must be manually added to the VM after import. The vSphere Client displays a warning message when deploying an OVF template or importing an OVF to a Content Library stating that the imported VM will not contain a vTPM device, even if the OVF contains a vTPM placeholder. See Using OVF Tool with vTPM Virtual Machines below.

Important: The vSphere Client and Content Library service do not currently recognise vTPM placeholder attributes. When importing an OVF/OVA template that does contain vTPM placeholder attributes this section is ignored and the imported virtual machine or template will not have a vTPM device associated with it. You must manually add a vTPM device to the imported machine. VMware is working to improve this workflow in a future release. See Using OVF Tool with vTPM Virtual Machines below.

The option --addDevice:vtpm can be used to automatically create a vTPM placeholder in the OVF descriptor file during export. You must still first manually remove the vTPM device from the virtual machine before export. The following example command will export the virtual machine named myvm and add a vTPM placeholder to the resulting ovf file.

When using OVF Tool to import a template, that contains a vTPM placeholder, a vTPM device is automatically added to the VM on import. The following example command will import the OVF myvm.ovf to the specified datastore and host and automatically add a new vTPM device to the imported virtual machine.

Important: You do not use the --addDevice:vtpm flag when importing an OVF. OVF Tool 4.5 and later automatically recognises the vTPM Placeholder and creates the vTPM device on the imported virtual machine.

vSphere vMotion always uses encryption when migrating encrypted virtual machines. This includes virtual machines configured with vTPM devices. vSphere vMotion supports migrating encrypted virtual machines across vCenter Server instances. To support migrations between vCenter Server instances, each instance must be configured with the same Key Provider.

When using a vSphere Native Key Provider, to support migrations between vCenter Server instances, you must backup the vSphere Native Key Provider Key Derivation Key (KDK) from one of the vCenter Server instances and restore the same KDK into all other vCenter Server instances.

Virtual machines with a vTPM device do not support the OVF/OVA template format. You can use a Windows Preinstallation Environment (WinPE) Image to build a Windows 11 VM without a vTPM device and save that VM as an OVF/OVA template. You can deploy Windows 11 at scale from the template, then add a new unique virtual TPM device into each deployed VM instance. Using a bootable WinPE image provides a simple process to deploy Windows 11 into a VM without a vTPM from the start that is fully supported by Microsoft and VMware.

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