Vmware Converter 4.0.1
Clara Zellinger
Apologies for resurrecting an old thread, but has anyone found a solution to this problem? Same error with Converter Standalone 5.0. It looks like it creates the file, and then deletes it, and then can't find it.
I did manage to get the vCenter Converter Standalone installed originally, and it took a snapshot of my Windows 7 machine no problem. But when I tried to take a subsequent snapshot, I got an error saying that it couldn't identify the machine properly (or something along those lines). Therefore, I decided to uninstall the vCenter Converter Standalone in the correct & clean manner, and re-install it. However, the re-install just will not work because I also get the 'Error 29163.Could not copy file' in relation to the 'converter-client.xml' file.
Can you try something? Go to %USERPROFILE%\VMware and reset all permissions (right click on the folder, select 'properties', go to 'security' tab, click on 'advanced, 'change permissions', and check both boxes - i.e. 'Include inheritable permissions...' and 'Replace all child ...') Check that your account has modify permissions.
Try disabling anti-virus and anti-spyware software. Superantispyware thought the openssl library being installed was spyware and the installation failed with the 29163 error. Once disabled the install of v5.1 worked perfect.
SOLVED!! ...for me at least, the problem was something strange going on with Windows UAC. I was logged in as a standard user and right clicking on the ".msi" file and choosing "Run as Administrator", but kept getting the error,
I had tried uninstalling anti-malware (MalwareBytes) and disabling all McAfee anti-virus software, but the problem was still happening. I had even tried to run a PowerShell prompt as my administrator and ran the msi from there with the same error.
I should also mention that I had problems running the downloaded executable file "VMware-converter-en-6.0.0-2716716.exe". It would extract, but then msiexec would not like something and the install never started, so I had to get the "VMware vCenter Converter Standalone.msi" file from "C:\ProgramData\VMware\Installer\" and was running that when this problem occurred.
...Finally I decided to do a Windows "switch user". I logged into Windows with my administrator account and was able to run the msi file without any errors! The installed worked and the installed program runs while logged in with my standard user now. Chalk it up to UAC bugginess. Hopefully this helps you.
I'm attempting to use VMware Standalone Converter version 6.11 (current version, installed very recently) to create a backup of an existing VMed Windows machine on a remote VMware hypervisor. However as soon as I give VMware Converter the source machine IP and login, it throws this error:
A general system error occurred: Not supported version: Unsupported version URI "urn:converter/7.0" while parsing SOAP body at line 6, column 0 while parsing SOAP envelope at line 2, column 0 while parsing HTTP request before method was determined at line 1, column 0.
Googling has left me none the wiser about what could be causing this, it appears to be a version mismatch of some kind but as I'm running an up to date version of Converter I'm not sure what is objecting to what?
Not sure if relevant, but if I attempt to connect to the hypervisor running the VM in question from the same Windows 10 laptop the Vsphere client installer it wants to download throws an error about "This can only be installed on Win XP SP2 or above" (it's V5). I'm wondering if there are support files that are needed from Vsphere before Converter will connect? And if so is there any way to persuade it that yes, Windows 10 is a version above XP SP2? Just a guess though.
Edit: I tried installing Vsphere from the hypervisor, and Converter, on a Windows 2003 machine on the same network. Vsphere accepted that as being "XP SP2 or above" and installed correctly and connects to the hypervisor quite happily. However Converter throws exactly the same error when given the login credentials of the VM I want to copy.
Is it possible that an older version of the converter or its agent is installed inside the VM? If yes, uninstall it. The VMware Converter installs its own agent automatically if you connect to the machine with administrator credentials.
But if you prefer converter approach I would strongly recommend you using a 3rd party V2V converter by StarWind instead of VMwares. It's free and helped me a lot of times working with all the most commonly used VM formats: VMDK, VHD/VHDX, StarWind native IMG, QCOW. It works both ways, converting from and to any selected format, thus having better functionality than similar converters.
I'm gearing up to perform a good number of P2V conversions and I'm trying to get an idea what the best workflow might be. i won't detail all the steps,just what at this point is "out of order", so I can get some feedback from your experiences.
Initially I wanted to do first defrag while on physical, then I remembered i read somewhere converter copies data block based (conserving defrag status) only if you do not resize disks (correct me if wrong).
For VMs that need to be resized as part of the conversion I would go with plan A. You're correct about resizing partitions - when you leave partition sizes intact the P2V is block by block. If you resize then it is essentially one big file copy so there shouldn't be any fragmentation on the new disk.
I can't say for sure whether realigning the partition moves files around and would require a defrag. The one point I'll make about defrags is obvious but is worth stating anyway - defragmentation is a very heavy disk I/O operation. If you're performing a defrag on a virtual machine, that may affect performance of other VMs on the same datastore or storage platform. It might make sense to schedule just one at a time over a longer period rather than trying to run several at once.
As for zeroing out whitespace, are you planning on making this VMs thin provisioned? If not then what is the goal of zeroing out the space? Here's a post I made on the subject of zeroing out whitespace on a virtual machine so that it can be reclaimed using Storage vMotion and thin provisioning:
When you use Converter and shrink or grow the disk it will create a blank vmdk and do a file by file copy so there is no reason to defrag, If you defrag a thin disk it will grow and not necessary anyway.
Well, I think converter does not do that. I've hade a few VMs converted sofar, for which I adjusted the disk layout and sizes and then I ran raxco perfect disk on it, and it found files and folders to defrag...so that is why I want the defrag after the conversion.
Creating a new virtual machine as well as installing and configuring all necessary applications can take a long time. Fortunately, when you need to migrate your workloads from a physical server to a VMware virtual machine (VM), you are not required to create and configure a new VM from scratch because you can use VMware vCenter Converter Standalone to convert a physical machine to a virtual machine. VMware vCenter Converter Standalone can also convert Hyper-V VMs to VMware VMs as well as converting VMware VMs from one format to another.
VMware vCenter Converter Standalone is a free application that can be downloaded from the VMware website and installed on Windows for converting supported types of machines to VMware virtual machines. The VMware vCenter Converter Standalone featured in this blog post is called Standalone because it can be installed on the operating system of a custom machine. There are two other types of VMware Converter which are not currently supported:
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