transfer vm machine created in virtualbox to vmware player [closed]

Fedora 17 Host
Oracle VirtualBox 4.2.4
Vmware Player 5.0.1 build-894247

I have Fedora 17 and have installed Virtualbox and vmware player.

I created a CentOS virtual machine guest in virtual box. Using the vmdk disk image format. I have the following files in my VirtualBox VM directory.

CentOS_5_6_svr2_x86_64.vbox
CentOS_5_6_svr2_x86_64.vbox-prev
CentOS_5_6_x86_64-flat.vmdk
CentOS_5_6_x86_64.vmdk

However, I have decided to use Vmware player. I don't want to have to create a new virtual machine over again. Is it possible to open these files in vmware player without having create a new virtual machine?

In vmware player I only have options to open an exiting virtual machine or create a new one.

Many thanks for any suggestions,


It can be done, though I wouldn't recommend it. You're introducing unknowns into your server environment which will probably come back to bit you down the line. Having said that, there are a couple guides out there that do a good job of explaining it. This one at How to Geek is short and sweet, and this one at TechRepublic is more in-depth (plus, I have trouble taking How to Geek seriously). Oh, and don't use VMWare player na professional environment anyway. Use ESXi/ESX, or if you must, Workstation.

The basic steps are:

  1. Export the VM through Virtual Box File --> Export Appliance into OVA or OVF format.
  2. Import into VMWare.

Depending on your versions, and tolerance for errors in the imported VM, you may wish to edit your OVA/OVF with a text editor and/or use a VMWare tool to convert the OVA/OVF to a .vmx.