I recently created the following templates and wanted to get a consistent copy on both my lab ESX system and my laptop VM Workstation system, I noted VMware Convertor 4.0 had been released so thought it would be an ideal time to use it to get a fresh set of images with all the current Windows updates applied. I also have an ESX server farm in my lab and I like to keep my standard images consistent between workstation and ESX/VC to to save me creating and patching multiple templates.
However, if I want to change the base template (for example to update from SP1 to SP2) this does present an issue as it has lots of children which depend on it so I can’t change the parent VM, in this instance I create a full clone of the base VM and update it and create further linked clones from it (essentially creating a “fork”).
This is handy for me as each VM only consumes small amounts of space as they are all just differential snapshots. and then I sysprep it and shut it down.Īt this point I mark it read-only and when I want to create a new Windows virtual machine I just right-click it and create a linked-clone. I have a set of standard template Virtual Machines under VMware Workstation 6.5 that I use to spin up VMs, Workstation doesn’t have a native template feature but I get a VM to a point where I’m happy with the build, VM tools installed, Windows updates done etc. Using VMware vCenter Converter 4 to create a Virtual Center Template February 20, 2009 Try it out to find out how the process went.
Specify the powered-on machine – Obviously, select This local machine.I choose Powered-on machine, to convert the local system. Select source type: – This is where you get to choose the system you wish to convert.Start VMware vCenter Converter and click on Convert Machine.Keep in mind you will need another drive or remote storage to store the new virtual machine.
VMware vCenter Converter is available for free from the VMware website.What it does is convert a bare-metal system in to a VMware virtual machine ready to be used. VMware foresaw the existence of server configurations that were either too complex or labor intensive to be recreated from scratch, that’s why they came up with VMware vCenter Converter. The title should have been transition from bare metal to virtual with VMware vCenter Converter. Virtualize a Windows system with VMware vCenter Converter August 17th, 2009 by Luis Ventura