VMWorkStation..But now what should I do?

Question

According to many friends here the best way to make a development environment is to use VMWare Workstation as you can see in the following thread:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/sharepoint2010general/thread/675ca632-014f-4a2f-ae8e-374a2d2402c7

So now I have VMWare Workstation 7.1.3 on my PC but I don't know how to run Hyper-V virtual machines (Which I have from a training center lab)  into it ? Should I use import ? I don't see any .vhd extension so I import the virtual machines I worked on in the training center lab ? What should I do?

In the training center we have Windows 2008 R2 and Hyper-V but I don't have Windows 2008 R2 so I guess I cannot use Hyper-V directly and that why I installed VMWare Workstation in the first place but I'm stuck now...

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I am too late but i will never give up

Answer 1

You can't run Hyper-V images in VMware. If you want to use VMWare you will need to build your own images.  Some people have had success converting Hyper-V images to run in VMWare, but its never worked for me.  Normally with VMWare you will need to build out your own server image from scratch.  Critical Path Training has a nice article on the steps required to build a dev image in their Members section.  You can get it here:

http://www.criticalpathtraining.com/Members/Pages/default.aspx

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Paul Stork SharePoint Server MVP

Answer 2

Here is the example with VM Player but VM ware workstation would work same...

This is step by step documentation of converting SP2010 Information Worker VM to VMWare Player.. You need to use the tool like WinImage..

http://gvaro.wordpress.com/2010/06/03/converting-the-sharepoint-and-office-2010-information-worker-virtual-machines-to-vmware-from-hyper-v/

I have done this in past and it worked great..

Nik

Answer 3

This is the example/thoughts I had followed in June to convert the SP2010 IM hyper-V VHD to VMware Workstation 7 on Windows 7.

http://www.sharepointdevwiki.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=23429169

Hope it helps,

Nik

Answer 4

Here is the example with VM Player but VM ware workstation would work same...

This is step by step documentation of converting SP2010 Information Worker VM to VMWare Player.. You need to use the tool like WinImage..

http://gvaro.wordpress.com/2010/06/03/converting-the-sharepoint-and-office-2010-information-worker-virtual-machines-to-vmware-from-hyper-v/

I have done this in past and it worked great..

Nik

Thank you Nik this does work for the first VHD I have but when I tried on a second one I have a problem with WinImage.When I open a VHD in it then click save to save it as vmdk nothing happened at all ?! It acts like I did nothing ?!

 Please could you help me on that one? Is there anything I should do?

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I am too late but i will never give up

Answer 5

Hmmm.. Interesting.. I have tried same method on both VM and it worked fine.. ;)

Nik

Answer 6

Eagle, are you not able to just use Windows Server 2008 R2 as your host and then run Hyper-V like normal?  Does your company not have an MSDN account for things like this?  How do you normally build development environments?  What software/licensing do you use for all the servers?

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SharePoint Architect || Microsoft MVP || My Blog
Planet Technologies || SharePoint Task Force

Answer 7

Hmmm.. Interesting.. I have tried same method on both VM and it worked fine.. ;)

Nik

I'm sure your method is correct (Of course I will mark it as answer at the end) but there is a problem that cause WinImage not to work for the second time I don't know why?

Yesterday I made some google search and I found someone who face the same problem but there was no useful answer for my problem.I may reboot my machine tonight and see what happened...

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I am too late but i will never give up

Answer 8

Eagle, are you not able to just use Windows Server 2008 R2 as your host and then run Hyper-V like normal?  Does your company not have an MSDN account for things like this?  How do you normally build development environments?  What software/licensing do you use for all the servers?

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SharePoint Architect || Microsoft MVP || My Blog
Planet Technologies || SharePoint Task Force

I'm unemployed and even the course I'm in I pay from my own budget.I took the course so I be able to have a good job opportunity.I hope VM Workstation do the job so I don't need to pay for Windows 2008 Standard license...

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I am too late but i will never give up

Answer 9

Sorry, I coudn't reply earliar..

Please note that there is no need for second VM unless you need outlook integration or incoming or outgoing email functionality. SharePoint 2010 requires Exchange for that funcitonality. Second VM is optional.

Also, I would suggest to download exchange VM files again and try it again. I didn't had any issues. There might be corrupt download or uploaded IM worker files..

Nik

Answer 10

I'm unemployed and even the course I'm in I pay from my own budget.I took the course so I be able to have a good job opportunity.I hope VM Workstation do the job so I don't need to pay for Windows 2008 Standard license...

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We definitely want to get everything working with VMWare then.

Nik mentioned that you can get away with the one VHD/VM except for email functionality.  I actually use a free email tool that you can install right on the same server: Update 1 – Infrastructure Setup: Single Server Farm

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SharePoint Architect || Microsoft MVP || My Blog
Planet Technologies || SharePoint Task Force

Answer 11

Sorry, I coudn't reply earliar..

Please note that there is no need for second VM unless you need outlook integration or incoming or outgoing email functionality. SharePoint 2010 requires Exchange for that funcitonality. Second VM is optional.

Also, I would suggest to download exchange VM files again and try it again. I didn't had any issues. There might be corrupt download or uploaded IM worker files..

Nik

Well the second VHD I have is not the microsoft Exchange Server VHD.It is one I got from my training class machine ofcourse after telling the instructor.But I found that it is not one VHD.They are serveral VHD (baseHV) (DC-A DC-B DC-C DC-D DC-E DC-F) (WFE-A WFE-B.....same as for DC) some of them has a size of 6 GB and some of them around 250 megabytes?!!!!

The result on the training machine is multiple domain controlers machines and multiple front end machine.They are connected using private network of course in Hyper-V manager.Could that cause WinImage not to be able to convert some of them when I try to? Did any one saw such VHDs from microsoft?

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I am too late but i will never give up

Answer 12

Have you tried using VMWare converter? http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/

It's free and VHD conversion is supported (as it says on the website).

Answer 13

Have you tried using VMWare converter? http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/

It's free and VHD conversion is supported (as it says on the website).

I read alot in the web that VMWare Converter do not support Hyper-V.However as I mentioned the VHDs I have looks very special since they are group of DCs and Front-Ends.

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I am too late but i will never give up

Answer 14

Hmmm.. Interesting.. I have tried same method on both VM and it worked fine.. ;)

Nik

I tried with another VHD ( Windows 2008 R2 Trail VHD) and WinImage works.So there is something special with the Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Configuration course VHDs.They were made to work each DC VHD along with Each opposite WFE VHD using Private Network.But I realy don't know how to convert them to VMWare and make them works the same as with Hyper-V in the Lab machine. 

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I am too late but i will never give up

Answer 15

Oh.. It's my bad.. I assumed you are using Microsoft Information Worker VM..

Try to download the information worker VM from Microsoft.. it's hyper-v and free..

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=751fa0d1-356c-4002-9c60-d539896c66ce&displaylang=en

Would work great for your training and learning..

Nik

Answer 16

Oh.. It's my bad.. I assumed you are using Microsoft Information Worker VM..

Try to download the information worker VM from Microsoft.. it's hyper-v and free..

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=751fa0d1-356c-4002-9c60-d539896c66ce&displaylang=en

Would work great for your training and learning..

Nik

Thank you for your cooperation especially the link you gave me about converting to VM Ware virtual machines.I made 2 Windows 2008 R2 VMX depending on the article you provided successfully and planing to install SharePoint 2010 on them.I have the Microsoft one you provided already but as I remember I got some problems after converting it to VM Ware they are great and I may give it another try later on but since I need to try installing SharePoint 2010 the trail Windows 2008 R2 virtual machine is good for the mean time.

About the lab Virtual Machines I found that not all of them are virtual machines but some are Hard Drives to be added to the virtual machines.I may give them another try later on too.

Thanks to every one post in my thread this realy means alot to me (especially Nik)...

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I am too late but i will never give up