How do I convert a .vhd disk image to work with VMWare Fusion 2?

I’ve just installed VMWare Fusion 2 on my Mac.

Microsoft makes available some Virtual PC disk images containing different versions of IE, so that us humble web developers can test our code on them:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=21EABB90-958F-4B64-B5F1-73D0A413C8EF&displaylang=en

I want to convert these .vhd files to work with VMWare Fusion 2.

Note: VMWare Fusion 3 can import .vhd files natively (File > Import). This works just fine on the Microsoft IE compatibility VMs.

I’ve tried VMWare Converter Standalone on Windows, but it doesn’t work with .vhd files (as of the current version, 4.0.1).

Any ideas? VMWare’s website is confused corporate hell.

Solution 1:

This isn't an answer so much as it is precautionary...

I've launched those MS provided VM's with Microsoft's Virtual PC, then used VMware Converter to convert them as suggested by others.

It ain't pretty. Or at least, wasn't 2 years ago when I last tried. Among other things, I lost the windows license...

Solution 2:

Alternatively, if you are using Windows 7, you can mount the .vhd file in the drive manager, then use that mounted drive as a physical drive in vmware.

Solution 3:

The VMware Virtual Machine Importer can convert several VM formats (and physical disks) to a VMware disk. This includes the VHD format used by VirtualPC.

Check the doc here for the supported formats.

Solution 4:

Use WinImage to convert the VHD file into a VMDK file. Here is a great walkthrough:

http://www.sertec.ca/howtos/Howto-Convert-VHD-to-VMDK-Partition-types.html

Solution 5:

Your problem is that the VMware Converter Standalone wants to convert whole Virtual PC images which are .vmc files and not just the disk images, the .vhd files.

I guess you'll need to download Virtual PC, create an image that uses the disk, and then convert that.