01/01/2023, 23:24 How to Migrate VMware VMs to Hyper-V in 3 Ways?

- Vinchin Backup

How to Migrate VMware VMs to Hyper-V in 3 Ways?

2022-10-09 | Echo

Table of contents

Data Migration Tools:

Prerequisites:

Way 1: Convert a VMware VM to Hyper-V with MVMC

Way 2: Converting VMDK to VHDX with PowerShell

Way 3: Convert a VMware VM to Hyper-V with SCVMM

Backup VMs for Data Insurance before Risky Operations

Sum up

VMware is a virtualization software and cloud computing vendor that enjoys a long history in the industry with a bunch of products and tools for virtual machine
operation, recovery, and migration. As a widely popular choice for various IT environments, VMware appeals to global customers because of its high data availability,
fault tolerance, fully functioning ecosystem, and other features.

While Microsoft Hyper-V is a bare-metal hypervisor that has migration flexibility between physical hosts, storage migration from a running VM to another, high
availability, and server scalability without purchasing new hardware. Best of all, it saves money and is cost-effective for users.

Now, you might want to run a multi-hypervisor environment, do a test, or look for a more rational price. Either way, you need to convert VMware VMs to Hyper-V
and Microsoft provides 3 ways to help you complete the data migration.

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Data Migration Tools:

Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter (MVMC): A free standalone conversion program with GUI that can turn physical machines into virtual ones, which works for
Azure, VMware ESXi VMs conversion to Hyper-V. While it is open to download, its support officially ended on June 03, 2017. So, use this method with caution.

Convert VMDK to VHDX and attach conversed files with PowerShell: This way applies to both VMware Workstation and VMware ESXi when you have the
virtual disk files, but not all virtual machine files like VMX configuration files.

System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM): A management solution and conversion tool for Hyper-V and VMware environments.

Prerequisites:

Some measures need to be done previous to the data migration to avoid problems.

Remove any redundant virtual devices like COM and virtual floppy drives and eject virtual CD to avoid any disturbance.

Delete unnecessary files, programs, and components of the virtual hard disks.

Delete or consolidate VM snapshots.

Remove VMware Tools before converting online. MVMC only disables VMware services in offline conversion for Windows OS, so you could uninstall the tools
manually.

Way 1: Convert a VMware VM to Hyper-V with MVMC

1. Start the Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter (MVMC), and select Virtual machine conversion as the Machine Type. Click Next.

2. Select Migrate to Hyper-V on the Migration Destination page, then click Next.

3. Enter the name/IP address of the destination host and access the privileged user on the Hyper-V Host page. Click Next to proceed.

4. Set the Disk options and specify a location where the converted virtual hard disks will be stored. Recommend not to use the system disk for storing in production
environments. Choose the virtual hard disk type for the converted disk between Fixed size (thick-provisioned) and Dynamically expanding (thin-provisioned). Select
the converted disk format between VHD and VHDX. Click Next.

5. Input the address, username, and password on the Source page to connect to ESXi/vCenter server. Click Next.

6. Select the conversion virtual machine from the list on the Virtual Machine page, then click Next.

7. On/Off the Final state of source and destination virtual machines. Provide the root account username and password of the source VM if it has VMware Tools.
Click Next.

8. Click Browse... on the Workspace screen to choose a folder where temporary files for the conversion process will be kept, then select Next.

9. Review all the setup details you provided on the Summary screen, and then click Finish to begin the conversion.

10. See the status on the Completion page and click Close when it’s finished.

Way 2: Converting VMDK to VHDX with PowerShell

1. Export target VMware VMs to the OVF template. We need the .vmdk file.

2. Start PowerShell and enter the command to add the converter module.

Import-Module “MVMCfolderpath\Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter\MvmcCmdlet.psd1”

3. Convert VMDK into VHDX:

ConvertTo-MvmcVirtualHardDisk -SourceLiteralPath “VMDKfile-path-and-name.vmdk” -VhdType Fixedsize/DynamicHardDisk -VhdFormat vhd/vhdx -

DestinationLiteralPath “newfilepath\newfilename.vhdx”

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4. Attach the converted disk to Hyper-V.

1) Open Hyper-V Manager, go to the Actions pane, and click New>Virtual Machine… to create a new VM.

2) Follow the steps of the New Virtual Machine Wizard and click Next on the Before You Begin page.

3) Specify the new Virtual Machine Name and Location. Click Next.

4) Choose the Generation 1 or 2 base, and click Next.

5) Assign the memory for the VM from the physical PC.

6) On Configure Networking page, select New Virtual Switch or Not Connection (don’t have or want to connect in LAN) from the Connection dropdown list.

7) On Connect Victual Hard Disk, select Use an existing virtual hard disk and click Browse… to select the hard disk. Click Next.

8) Click Finish.

9) Click twice on New Virtual Machine.

10) Click Power on to start.

Way 3: Convert a VMware VM to Hyper-V with SCVMM

Notes:

VMM 2022 supported VMware servers: ESX/ESXi 6.5, 6.7 and vCenter 6.5, 6.7.
Unsupported conversion subjects: VMware workstations, virtual machines with hard disks connected to an IDE bus, and online conversions.
Power off anti-virus apps and VMware VMs.
Uninstall VMware Tools from the guest OS.

1. Open VMs and Services.

2. On the Home page, click Create Virtual Machine in Create group. Then click Convert Virtual Machine.

3. In the Convert Virtual Machine wizard, click Select Source, Browse and choose the VMware VMs to be converted in Select Virtual Machine Source.

4. On Specify Virtual Machine Identity page, specify the VM name and optional description.

5. On the Virtual Machine Configuration pane, set the number of processors and the memory size (in megabytes or gigabytes).

6. On the Select Host page, choose a Hyper-V host for placement and configure the storage location for the VM in Select Path. The default path is listed, and for
another different location, click Browse and the folder. You could also add a path by selecting Add this path to the list of default storage locations on the host.

7. On the Select Networks page, choose from the virtual network, the logical network, and the virtual LAN (VLAN).

8. On Add Properties page, set up the required configurations and review settings in the Summary pane. Select Start the virtual machine after deploying
it optionally.

9. Click Create to start. Confirm the Completed job status in the Jobs dialog, then close it.

10. In VMs and Services > Home > Show > VMs, confirm the conversion of the VM.

Backup VMs for Data Insurance before Risky Operations

Either it is a safety assurance measure during V2V migration between VMware and Hyper-V, or data loss prevention in daily operation, backup is one of the best ways
to secure data safe and sound in case of file corruption, cyberattacks, migration errors, and more.

Vinchin Backup & Recovery is a compatible and centrally managed VM and database protection solution for more than 10+ virtualization and mainstream databases,
for instance, VMware, Hyper-V, Citrix Hypervisor (previously XenServer), XCP-ng, oVirt, Red Hat Virtualization, Oracle OLVM, OpenStack, etc.

Agentless backup: interacts with hypervisor rather than the backup agent, thus less resource consumption and easier installation.

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01/01/2023, 23:24 How to Migrate VMware VMs to Hyper-V in 3 Ways? - Vinchin Backup
Automated backup: Choose from full, differential, and forever incremental backup strategies in settable backup schedules, and enable mail alert notifications to
automate the whole backup process.

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Vinchin Backup & Recovery simplifies the VM backup process into 3 steps, you can download the 60-day full-featured free trial to try.

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1. On VM Backup>Backup page, choose a target backup source from the licensed backup server list.

2. Choose the backup destination for the backup VM.

3. Configure backup strategies like data reduction, schedules, retention policy, transmission, etc.

And last, review all the settings and submit the job.

Sum up

In this article, I introduced 3 ways to convert VMware VMs to Hyper-V, which are MVMC, PowerShell, and SCVMM. However, remember that MVMC had been
discontinued by Microsoft, you could resort to the paid conversion tool SCVMM, or find another third-party way to migrate.

But before that, please note that backup is the bottom line and safety insurance prior to any V2V migration progress and data loss incidents. Use Vinchin Backup &
Recovery to back up and restore multiple platforms now, and manage their backups easily in one dashboard.

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