VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 6.2.0.1 Release Notes (2024)

What's in the Release Notes

These release notes cover the following topics:

• AboutvCenter Converter Standalone
• Installation
• Platforms
• Interoperability
• Supported Guest Operating Systems
• Customer Experience Improvement Program
• Caveats and Limitations
• Resolved Issues
• Known Issues

About vCenterConverter Standalone

VMware vCenter Converter Standalone provides an easy-to-use solution thatautomates the process of creating VMware virtual machines from physical machines (running Windows and Linux) and other virtual machine formats. Through an intuitive wizard-driven interface and a centralized management console, Converter Standalone can quickly and reliably convert multiple local and remote physical machines without any disruptions or downtime.

Benefits

• Convert physical machines running Windows or Linux operating systems to VMware virtual machines quickly and without any disruption or downtime.
• Enable centralized management of remote conversions of multiple physical servers or virtual machines simultaneously.
• Ensure conversion reliability through quiesced snapshots of the guest operating system on the source machine before data migration.
• Enable non-disruptive conversions through hot cloning, with no source server downtime or reboot.

Installation

You can download, install, and run VMware vCenter Converter Standalone in English only.

Users with limited rights cannot install Converter Standalone on Windows. You must log in as an elevated administrator to install Converter Standalone.

Note: You cannot upgrade to VMware vCenterConverter Standalone 6.2.x from previous versions. If you have a previous version of Converter Standalone installed, uninstall it and then installConverter Standalone 6.2x.

Platforms

You can install VMware Converter Standalone 6.2.x on the following platforms:

• Windows Vista SP2 (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Windows Server 2008 SP2 (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Windows Server 2008 R2 (64-bit)
• Windows 8 (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Windows Server 2012 (64-bit)
• Windows 8.1 (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Windows Server 2012 R2 (64-bit)
• Windows 10 (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Windows Server 2016 (64-bit)

VMware Converter Standalonecan convert offline virtual machines from the following Hyper-V servers:

• Windows Server 2008 R2 (64-bit)
• Windows Server 2012 (64-bit)
• Windows Server 2012 R2(64-bit)
• Windows 10(64-bit)
• Windows Server 2016(64-bit)

Interoperability

For the most up-to-date interoperability ofConverter Standalonewith VMware Desktop products and VMware vCenter virtual machines, check the VMware Product Interoperability Matrices. In addition, Converter Standalone 6.2.x supports as sources physical machines running an operating system noted in Supported Guest Operating Systems.

Note: Converter Standalone 6.2.x does not support Virtual Hardware versions above 11. For selected hardware versions above 11, features are limited to the features in version 11.

Note: The interoperability information for VMware Workstation Player is published under the VMware Workstation product with matching versions. For example, for interoperability withVMware Workstation Player 14, seeVMware Workstation 14.

Supported Guest Operating Systems

Converter Standalone 6.2.x supports the following guest operating systems:

• Windows Vista SP2 (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Windows Server 2008 SP2 (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Windows Server 2008 R2 (64-bit)
• Windows 8 (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Windows Server 2012 (64-bit)
• Windows 8.1 (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Windows Server 2012 R2 (64-bit)
• Windows 10 (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Windows Server 2016 (64-bit)
• CentOS 6.x (32-bit and 64-bit)
• CentOS 7.0, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.4, 7.5 (64-bit)
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.x (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.x (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.x (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.0, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.4, 7.5(64-bit)
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10.x (32-bit and 64-bit)
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11.x (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Ubuntu 14.04LTS (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Ubuntu 16.04LTS(32-bit and 64-bit)

CAUTION:During cloning of powered on Linux machines, Converter Standalonepreserves the following source file systems on the destination: ext2, ext3, ext4, reiserfs, vfat, and xfs. All other source file systems are converted into ext3 or ext4 file systems on the destination virtual machine.

For more information about the operating systems supported by Converter Standalone and other system requirements, seeVMware vCenter Converter Standalone System Requirements.

Customer Experience Improvement Program

This product participates in VMware’s Customer Experience Improvement Program (“CEIP”). Details regarding the data collected through CEIP and the purposes for which it is used by VMware are set forth at the Trust & Assurance Center at https://www.vmware.com/solutions/trustvmware/ceip.html.To join or leave the CEIP for this product, please start Converter Standaloneand selectCustomerExperience Improvement Programfrom the Administration menu on the toolbar. Select the check box to jointhe CEIPor deselect the check box to leave the program.

Note: You can join the CEIP during the installation of vCenter Converter Standalone.

Caveats and Limitations

Converter Standalonesupports source and destination disk drives with 512B (512e and 512n) disk sector size only.4K native(4Kn)disk drives are not supported.

Resolved Issues

• New Conversion of a powered on Windows machine to an SMB share fails

  Conversion of a powered on Windows machine to an SMB sharefails with the following error message: Unable to obtain the lock on virtual disks.

  This issue is resolved in this release.

• New Converting Windows 10 or Windows Server 2016 source machine with incremental sync in progress fails if the machine reboots in between incremental steps

  When converting Windows 10 or Windows Server 2016 source machine with incremental sync in progress, if the machine reboots in between incremental steps,the conversion fails.

  This issue is resolved in this release.

• New Cannot virtualize a physical machine from within VMware Workstation 14.x

  Interoperability with VMware Workstation 14.x does not work.

  This issue is resolved in this release. Requires VMware Workstation 14.1.2.

• When converting hosted virtual machines with unpartitioned disks, you might not be able to obtain hardware information about the source

  When converting hosted virtual machines with unpartitioned disks, you might not be able to obtain hardware information about the source. In such case, the following error messages might appear in the worker log:

  • [01628 warning 'Default'] Partition:Invalid sector magic number.
  • [01628 warning 'Default'] ERROR: Failure during open: Reading disk signature
  • [01628 error 'Default'] [BaseDiskSetComputer::DoOpen] OpenDisks failed, mntapi error: 32.

  This issue is resolved in this release.

• Submitting a job might fail with the following message: The specified parameter was not correct:"info.owner"

  If Converter Standalone is installed in a client-server mode and you have connected by using a username, which is the same as the computer name, submitting a job might fail with The specified parameter was not correct:"info.owner" message.

  This issue is resolved in this release.

Known Issues

The known issues are grouped as follows.

• Installation
• General
• Windows Sources
• Linux Sources

Installation

• Converter Standalone installation fails when the selected installation folder name contains non-ASCII characters
  Converter Standalone installation fails if the installation folder name contains non-ASCII characters and the OS locale is different from the locale of the characters. If there are characters from two different locales mixed in the folder name, the installation fails because there is always a character with different locale than the OS locale.
  Workaround: Make sure that all the non-ASCII characters in the folder name are from the same locale as the OS locale.

• If the name of the Converter Standalone installation directory contains non-ASCII characters, you might experience conversion and configuration problems
  If the name of the Converter Standalone installation directory contains non-ASCII characters, the following issues might occur:

  • Conversion and configuration of Windows virtual machines might fail with an error message Unable to reconfigure destination virtual machine. In the vmware-converter-worker.log, this error generates a message similar to Error 3 (error restoring key: Unknown error 3 (0x3) (3)) restoring registry key C:\ã—ã™ãŸã•ã‹ãn°...\data\SKUNKWORKS_FILLER into... .
  • If you try to convert a Linux physical machine, you might receive an error message in the Convert Machine wizard Unable to obtain hardware information.

  Workaround: None.

• You must restart machines that run 64-bit Windows Vista or later before reinstalling Converter Standalone
  If you uninstall Converter Standalone from a 64-bit Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, or Windows 7 machine and do not restart it, a subsequent Converter Standalone installation might fail with the following error message:
  Error 29144. Could not install service Vstor2 MntApi 1.0 Driver (shared). Please reboot and try to install again.
  Workaround: Restart the Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, or Windows 7 machine and try installing Converter Standalone again.

• Users with limited rights cannot install Converter Standalone on Windows
  If you are logged in to Windows as a non-administrator user, the following error message is displayed while the InstallShield is extracting files for Converter Standalone installation:
  Unable to save file:
C:\WINDOWS\Installer\
The system cannot find the path specified.
  The error is displayed because limited user accountsdo not have the required write permissions.
  Workaround: Select the %TEMP% directory to extract the installation files:

  1. Click OK in the error message. A Save As dialog box appears.
  2. Browse to the Temp folder of the current user (for example, C:\Documents and Settings\"username"\Local Settings\Temp) and click OK.
  NOTE: You still need to log in as an administrator to install Converter Standalone.

General

• Converter Standalone fails to start when installed on a computer without internet access

  After you install Converter Standalone on a computer without internet connection, Converter Standalone services fail to start. The following message is displayed:
  Error 1053: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.
  This issue occurs because theDNS server is not able to resolve host names online and the file integrity check exceeds the default timeout of30 seconds due to failed access to public certificate authority stores.

  Workaround 1:
  OpenHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control in the Windows Registry Editor and create or modify aServicesPipeTimeout DWORD32 decimal valueto at least 300000 (5 minutes). Restart the system for the changes to take effect.

  Workaround 2:
  Install the VeriSign Class 3 Public Primary Certification Authority - G5 root certificate in the local Trusted Root Certification Authorities store. See KB 67429

• Disk-based cloning of a powered off machine image to a Virtual Volumes datastore destination might fail
  You might not be able to perform a disk-based cloning of a powered off machine image to a Virtual Volumes datastore destination. The conversion might fail at 1% with a message Operation experienced network error if the size of the source disk is not a number that is a multiple of a MB.
  Workaround: Use volume-based cloning, if the option is available.

• Creation of virtual machine with thick destination disk type of certain size fails on VSAN datastore even if it seems to have enough space
  If you try to perform disk-based conversion with thick destination disk type of certain size on VSAN datastore, the creation of virtual machine might fail with the following error 'converter.fault.InsufficientManagedDiskSpace', even if it seems to have enough space.
  Workaround: Change the destination disk type to thin.

• If you try to convert a source physical or virtual machine to a managed destination by using thick provisioned disks with large empty spaces on them, the conversion task might fail
  If you try to perform a disk-based cloning of a physical or virtual machine to a managed destination by using thick provisioned disks with large empty spaces on them, the conversion task might fail with an error message Unable to clone disk source_disk on the virtual machine virtual_machine_name. The following messages appear in the log file:
  [03200 warning 'Default'] [,0] [NFC ERROR] NfcNetTcpRead: bRead: -1
[03200 warning 'Default'] [,0] [NFC ERROR] NfcNet_Recv: requested 264, recevied only 0 bytes
[03200 warning 'Default'] [,0] [NFC ERROR] NfcFile_Stream: Failed to get message from source
[03200 warning 'Default'] [,0] [NFC ERROR] NFC_NETWORK_ERROR
  The destination ESXi server must return an acknowledgement after each processed NFC write request. If the source sends a large block of zeroes that must be written it might take a long time for the ESXi to return the acknowledgement. Thus, the Converter assumes that the operation has timed out and closes the connection, no matter that the ESXi server is still writing to the target disk.
  Workaround: Change the destination disk type to thin.

• A running P2V conversion job fails if you create a new conversion job for the same Windows source machine and use a different port to deploy the Converter Standalone agent
  If, while running a P2V conversion job, you start creating another conversion job for the same powered on Windows source machine, and specify a port for the connection, Converter Standalone deploys the Converter Standalone agent using the port you specified. If the connection port is different from the one that is being used for the already running conversion job, both jobs fail. The following error message appears in the Job summary tab for the first conversion job: FAILED: A general system error occurred: No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it. The following error message appears in the Job summary tab for the second conversion job: FAILED: Unable to create a VSS snapshot of the source volume(s). Error code: 2147754774 (0x80042316).
  Workaround: None.

• You cannot copy running conversion or configuration jobs
  If you open the Copy As New wizard for a running configuration or conversion job when the source is a virtual machine or a backup image and you click Next, the wizard displays the error message Unable to obtain hardware information for the selected machine.
  Workaround: Wait for the job to complete before selecting Copy as New in its pop-up menu.

• Linked Cloning of source images greater than 2 GB to a network share that does not support large files fails
  Creating linked clones from source images that are larger than 2 GB to a network share that does not support large files (for example, to a Linux SMB share) fails. Converter Standalone does not split the source files into smaller chunks. If the source is larger than the supported file size on the destination, the conversion tasks fails.
  Workaround: None.

• Creating a conversion job to convert a standalone VMware source with a VMDK file greater than 2 GB from a network share that does not support large files, fails
  If you select a standalone virtual machine source with VMDK file greater than 2 GB residing on a remote network location that does not support large files (for example, Linux SMB share), the following error message appears in the Converter wizard on clicking Next or View source details:
  Unable to obtain hardware information for the selected machine.
  Workaround: Map the network shared folder to the machine where Converter Standalone runs, and select the source from there.

• Converter Standalone cannot detect the power state of VMware Workstation or other VMware hosted source virtual machines if they are located on a read-only network share
  If the source machine is a Workstation or another VMware hosted source and is located on a network share with read-only permissions, Converter Standalone cannot detect if the source is powered on or suspended. This might lead to data inconsistency on the destination machine if changes are made to the powered on source virtual machine during conversion.
  Workarounds:

  • Verify that the source virtual machine is powered off prior to conversion.
  • Provide write privileges to the network share where the source virtual machine resides.

• Conversion jobs from and to ESX/ESXihosts that are not connected to vCenter Servers fail if the number of disks on the source machine is more than nine
  When converting a source machine that has more than nine disks, conversion fails with the following error in the log file:
  Error on logout (ignored): Operation timed out
SSLStreamImpl::BIORead (3BBA4E8) timed out.
  The error is due to the limited number of NFC connections that can be established to ESX/ESXihosts that are not connected to vCenter Server instances.
  Workaround: Connect to the destination ESX/ESXi host through a vCenter Server. In this case, the number of source disks is limited to 27 for ESX and to 23 for ESXi hosts.

• Converting source volumes with unrecognized file systems might prevent the destination virtual machines from starting
  While you are setting up a volume-based cloning task in one of the Converter Standalone wizards, the volume name might be missing in some rows of the Source Volumes tab. This means that Converter Standalone does not recognize the file system on those volumes. The destination virtual machine that is created as a result of such a conversion task might fail to start up. Nevertheless, Converter Standalone copies the source volume data to the destination using block-level copying.
  Workaround: Configure the destination virtual machine after the conversion.

  See Also

  Configuring PXE Network Boot Server on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

• Converting standalone VMware sources with a VMDK file greater than 2 GB to a hosted destination that resides on a network share that does not support large files, fails
  If you select a standalone virtual machine source with VMDK file greater than 2 GB and try to convert it to hosted destination residing on a remote network location that does not support large files (for example, Linux SMB or NFS share), the conversion job might fail with one of following error messages:

  • Unable to connect to the virtual disk
  • Remote server closed connection after 0 response bytes read
  • An error occurred during an operation on a virtual disk
  If conversion is successful, the following error message related to the VMDK file might appear when you power on the destination virtual machine:
  Internal Inconsistency errors
  Workaround:
  1. In the main application window of Converter Standalone, right-click the failed job and select Copy As New...
  2. Go to the Options page and select Data to Copy.
  3. In the Data to Copy pane, select the volumes to copy and click Advanced.
  4. On the Destination layout tab, select Split not pre-allocated or Split pre-allocated as the destination disk type.
  5. Click Next to view a summary of the conversion job.
  6. On the Ready to Complete page, click Finish to resubmit the job.

• Converter Standalone is unable to detect the system volume if it resides on a SCSI disk and IDE disks are present in the source machine
  On source machines with SCSI and IDE disks, Converter is unable to detect the system volume if the system volume resides on a SCSI disk. Converter only checks the first IDE disk in such configurations.
  Workaround: None.

• If the hardware configuration of the source machine is modified while the Conversion wizard is open, you need to restart the conversion wizard if you want to view correct source details
  Source machine details are retrieved per wizard session, as this is a time-consuming process. If some changes occur on the source machine (such as adding memory or hard drives) after this information is retrieved, the Conversion wizard does not show information about the changes.
  Workaround: Restart the conversion wizard.

• Cloning a source that contains file system errors might result in a damaged virtual machine
  See Cloning a source that contains file system errors may result in a damaged copy (KB 1006689).

• Timeout on SSL handshake when converting over a WAN link
  Converter Standalone does not support conversion over a WAN. When trying to perform a conversion over a WAN link, you might experience an SSL timeout because the timeout for SSL handshakes is two minutes.
  Workaround:

  1. To avoid the two-minute handshake, perform a conversion to a hosted destination machine (for example, Workstation) in the same LAN.
  2. Copy the temporary virtual machine and send it over the WAN to the remote site.
     If the intended destination is a Workstation virtual machine, this completes the process.
  3. If the intended destination is ESXi, import the Workstation virtual machine to the ESXi server.

• The Reconfigure Virtual Machine wizard does not display correctly the vDS port group name
  When you reconfigure a virtual machine that uses dvSwitch and you navigate to the Network interface settings pane, the Network name text box does not display the name of the dvSwitch after the port group name. Only port group is displayed instead.
  Workaround: None.

• The reported network transfer rate might not be correct
  The reported network transfer rate might be higher than the actual one because of the inherent compression used by the network protocol. This does not affect the network throttling.
  Workaround: None.

• Multiboot configurations are not supported for conversion
  Converter does not recognize proper boot and system volumes in multiboot source machines due to the multiple choices and the reconfiguration of the virtual machinemight fail.
  Workaround: Remove the multiboot configuration and leave only one to be converted.

Windows Sources

• New If you convert a Windows Server 2019 machine and you includea ReFS volume that you want to shrink during file-level cloning or while (re)configuring the destination virtual machine, this results in a PNP_DETECTED_FATAL_ERROR bug check (blue screen) with a value of 0x000000CA​

  If you convert a Windows Server 2019 machine and you includea ReFS volume that you want to shrink during file-level cloning or while reconfiguring the destination virtual machine, this results in a PNP_DETECTED_FATAL_ERROR bug check (blue screen) with a value of 0x000000CA.

  Workaround 1: Exclude the ReFS volume from the conversion of the Windows Server 2019 machine and then convert the ReFS volume(s) individually without configuring it.
  Workaround 2: Convert the machine without reconfiguring it and without shrinking the ReFS volume and then reconfigure the virtual machine by using a Converter Standalone instance that is installed on a Windows versionearlier than Windows Server 2019.

• New After a successful conversion of a powered-on Windows source machine, one or more volumes might be missing from the destination machine

  After a successful conversion of a powered-on Windows source machine, one or more volumes might be missing from the destination machine. This issue occurs if there are raw volumes on the source Windows machinebecause the Converter Standalone might not be able to detect them and might skip themduring the query and the conversion.

  Workaround: If the source machine has raw volumes, format them with a file system that is supported by the source’s operating system before moving forward with the conversion.

• New After a successful conversion of a Windows machine that uses LDM, the drive letters of dynamic volumes from the source machine might not be preserved on the destination virtual machine

  After the conversion of a Windows machine that uses LDM, the drive letters of dynamic volumes from the sourcemachine might not match the drive letters ofthe corresponding volumes on the destination machine.

  Workaround: You can assign drive letters to volumes manually. If the letter you wish to assign to a volume is already in use by another device, you can make it available either byassigning a different drive letter to this device or byremoving the drive letter.

• Cannot virtualize a physical machine from within VMware Fusion 10.x

  Interoperability with VMware Fusion 10.x does not work.

  Workaround:

  1. Create a shared folder on the destination machine and give the local Administrators group full control.
  2. Connect Converter to a host such as localhostand use a user from the local Administrators group.
  3. Verify that the firewall, the UAC, and the remote-UAC are disabled for the source and the destination machines.
  4. Start the conversion job by selecting the source machine under Powered on: This local machineor Remote Windows machine.
  5. Select as target VMware Workstation or other VMware virtual machineand then select the appropriate destination format VMware Fusion 8.x.

  Note: For more details, see Select a Powered On Windows Machine to Convert, and Select a Hosted Destinationin the vCenter Converter Standalone documentation set.

• Attempting to convert a remote Windows machine with Windows Vista or later with a remote administrative user results in "Permission denied" or "Unable to perform operation" errors, or the remote machine refuses to accept the administrator account

  When you attempt to convert a remote Windows machine with Windows Vista or later by deploying and using the Converter Agent, the installation of the agent results in "Permission denied" or "Unable to perform operation" errors, or if the Agent is installed on the remote machine, the machine refuses to accept the administrator account. This is theresult of the Remote Connection UAC which does not allow administrators to perform administrative tasks when connected remotely.

  Workaround: Disable the Remote Connection UAC.

  1. a) For Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, open the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System registry key and create or modify a DWORD32 value LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy = 1.
     b) For Windows 7 and later, disable the policy named "User Account Control: Run all administrators in Admin Approval Mode" in gpedit.msc:Computer Configuration/Windows Settings/Security Settings/Local Policies/Security Options/.
  2. Restart the source machine.
  3. Convert the machine,then restore the settings on the source and the destination machines.
• When customizing​ a Windows 10 or Windows Server 2016 machine, sysprep started by the customization process might fail

  When customizing a Windows 10 or Windows Server 2016machine, sysprep started by the customization process might fail with the following error "Windows installation encountered an unexpected error. Error code: 0xC0000005", making the target VM unusable.

  Workaround: Do not apply customization on the target VM. Do the operations manually in the VM after the conversion.

• The P2V conversion of a Windows Vista source machine with the Min size option selected for some volumes fails with error 112: "There is not enough space on the disk."
  Checking the used space on the source machine shows that the data can fit on the destination volume.
  Workaround: On the source machine, run the following command "vssadmin list shadowstorage" and check the text of the message. If it says "Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 300 MB" or some other value for allocated space on the problematic volume, it means that there are hidden shadow copy files placed in the volume. Increase the size of the destination volume with the required amount for the hidden files.

• Customization is not applied on Windows source machines running Microsoft Windows 8, Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 guest operating systems
  After the conversion of a Windows source machine with Windows 8, Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 guest operating system the selected customization options are not applied on the resulting VM. There is a c:\sysprep folder, and the c:\windows\system32\sysprep\panther\setuperr.log file contains similar lines:
  2015-12-04 01:51:21, Error SYSPRP Failed to remove staged package Microsoft.Windows.Photos_15.1120.13270.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe: 0x80070002.
[gle=0x00000002] 2015-12-04 01:51:21, Error SYSPRP Failed to remove apps for the current user: 0x80070002.
2015-12-04 01:51:21, Error SYSPRP Exit code of RemoveAllApps thread was 0x2.
2015-12-04 01:51:21, Error SYSPRP Failed to remove all apps: 0x80070002.
2015-12-04 01:51:21, Error [0x0f0082] SYSPRP ActionPlatform::LaunchModule: Failure occurred while executing 'SysprepGeneralize' from C:\Windows\System32\AppxSysprep.dll; dwRet = 0x2
2015-12-04 01:51:21, Error SYSPRP ActionPlatform::ExecuteAction: Error in executing action; dwRet = 0x2
2015-12-04 01:51:21, Error SYSPRP ActionPlatform::ExecuteActionList: Error in execute actions; dwRet = 0x2
2015-12-04 01:51:21, Error SYSPRP SysprepSession::Execute: Error in executing actions from C:\Windows\System32\Sysprep\ActionFiles\Generalize.xml; dwRet = 0x2
2015-12-04 01:51:21, Error SYSPRP RunPlatformActions:Failed while executing SysprepSession actions; dwRet = 0x2
2015-12-04 01:51:21, Error [0x0f0070] SYSPRP RunExternalDlls:An error occurred while running registry sysprep DLLs, halting sysprep execution. dwRet = 0x2
2015-12-04 01:51:21, Error [0x0f00a8] SYSPRP WinMain:Hit failure while processing sysprep generalize internal providers; hr = 0x80070002
  NOTE: The error code 0x80070002 and the application Microsoft.Windows.Photo are used as an example and might be different in the c:\windows\system32\sysprep\panther\setuperr.log file on the resulting VM.
  This is a result of multiple users logging in to the machine and installing or updating the Metro Apps.
  Workaround: For the only known workaround see the Microsoft knowledge base article Sysprep fails after you remove or update Windows Store apps that include built-in Windows images. Apply the workaround on the source machine and repeat the conversion.
  The workaround does not always work on the destination machine and can cause mismatch in sysprep. After applying workaround on the destination machine, you must invoke the following command: c:\windows\system32\sysprep\sysprep.exe /generalize /oobe /reboot /unattend:c:\sysprep\sysprep.xml

• Conversion job with no volume selected for shrinking fails with the following error message: 'An error occurred during the conversion: 'Block level cloning does not support shrinking volumes'
  Converting a Windows source that has an LDM volume that is larger than 2 TB and the first disk of the volume is an MBR disk fails with the following error message: 'An error occurred during the conversion: 'Block level cloning does not support shrinking volumes'. Converter attempts to create an MBR disk larger than 2 TB on the destination but the limit of MBR disks is 2 TB.
  The error does not occur on LDM volumes with a GPT first disk, because the destination disk type supports sizes larger than 2 TB.
  Workaround: Convert the LDM volume at file level. Trigger the file-level cloning by shrinking volume size.

• Unsupported guest operating systems are labeled Other and fail to assign correct values for disk and network controllers
  If you convert a virtual machine that is running on a Windows 8, Windows 8.1, or Windows 10 guest operating system to ESXi version earlier than 6.0, the conversion results in a VM that cannot boot or does not have networking. The VM settings list the guest operating system as Other instead of Windows 8, Windows 8.1, or Windows 10.
  Workaround 1: Select a destination ESXi which supports Windows 8, Windows 8.1, or Windows 10.
  Workaround 2: Manually select disk controller and network controller before conversion.

• If you convert a source machine with Windows 2008 and above operating system, some disk(s) may be offline or read-only
  If you convert a source machine with Windows 2008 and above operating system, some disk(s) in the destination VM may be offline or read-only.
  Workaround:

  • If the disk is offline, in the Disk Management console diskmgmt.msc, right-click the disk and select Online.
  • If the disk is read-only, run diskpart.exe with administrator's rights, and then run the following commands:
  1. DISKPART> list disk
     Lists all disks and their status: online/offline.
  2. DISKPART> select disk #
     Where "#" is the number of disk in offline state.
  3. DISKPART> attribute disk clear readonly
  4. DISKPART> online disk
  5. Repeat steps 2-4 for every offline disk.
  6. DISKPART> exit

Linux Sources

• NEW Converting a RedHat Enterprise Linux 7.6 or a CentOS 7.6 machine fails at 98% with Error: Unable to reconfigure the destination virtual machine

  Converting a powered-on RedHat Enterprise Linux 7.6 or CentOS 7.6 machine with a kernel that was updated to 3.10.0-957.5.1 fails at 98% with the following error: Unable to reconfigure the destination virtual machine. In the Task Progress tab, you see the following: An error occurred during the conversion: 'SysCommandWrapper: Error encountered in SysCommand: SysCommand failed to wait /usr/lib/vmware-converter/chrootAndExec.sh to terminate.

  Workaround:

  1. Before the conversion, open a command line on the source machine and run the following command: yum downgrade lvm2-libs-2.02.180-10.el7_6.2.x86_64 lvm2-2.02.180-10.el7_6.2.x86_64 device-mapper-event-libs-1.02.149-10.el7_6.2.x86_64 device-mapper-1.02.149-10.el7_6.2.x86_64 device-mapper-libs-1.02.149-10.el7_6.2.x86_64 device-mapper-event-1.02.149-10.el7_6.2.x86_64
  2. After the conversion, run yum updateon the target machine.
• New Converted SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 machine with XFS volumes might fail to start

  After a conversion of a powered-on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server10.x machine with XFS volumes, these volumes might fail to mount on the destination virtual machine. If the file system of the root directory is XFS, this results in failure to start the destination virtual machine.

  Workaround: None.

• New Converting a powered-on Linux machine fails with the following error: “Unable to partition the destination disks”

  Converting a powered-onLinux machine fails with the following error: Unable to partition the destination disks. A message similar to: An error occurred during the conversion: Failed to find matching disk device for VMODL Param Disk #0, 1447909153, controller: scsi, bus ID: 0, and unit ID: 0appears in the Status line of the Task progress tab. This issue occurs if the disk controller type of the destination machine is set to SCSI BusLogic.

  Workaround: Select another disk controller type for the destination virtual machine.

• Reconfiguration of Linux VM fails at 97-98%, with message: “Error: Unable to reconfigure the destination virtual machine” and the status contains “message: FATAL: kernel too old”

  Some Linux distributions have unsupported combinations of Linux kernel and grub loader.

  Workaround: None. Use supported distributions only.

• Converter cannot query Linux source when a volume is mounted more than once

  When the source machine has more than one mount point, you receive the following error message: Unable to query the live Linux source machine.
  The worker log contains entry similar to: 2017-11-10T14:04:16.686+08:00 error vmware-converter-worker[03260] [Originator@6876 sub=Default] No disks for volume with id '/dev/xvda2' and label ''
  Converter expects each source file system to have a unique mount point. Having more than one mount point per file system breaks the analysis of volumes and partitions.

  Workaround: Unmount any of the double mounted file systems in the source machine so that there is only one mount point per file system. Do not unmount the root (/) or boot (/boot) mount points. If any of them are mounted more than once, unmount the other mount point or points.

• Converted SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 machine might not have network connectivity
  If you convert a SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 machine, the converted virtual machine might not have network connectivity.

  Workaround:

  1. In the /etc/udev/rules.d/30-net_persistent_names.rules.d/30-net_persistent_names.rules file, comment out the lines that start with SUBSYSTEM and contain the old MAC addresses.
  2. Check the /etc/sysconfig/network directory. If there is no ifcfg-eth0 file and there is a file of the form ifcfg-if-mac_address, rename it to ifcfg-eth0.
  3. Restart the network service.

• Converted powered on Linux machines cannot start up
  If you convert a powered on Linux machine that has a non-standard LVM filter saved in the /etc/lvm.conf file, the converted virtual machine might fail to start up. The following error message appears in the virtual machine console:
  Unable to access resume device (dev/ / )
  Workaround: Before the conversion, edit the filter in the lvm.conf file on the source Linux machine to allow all devices. For Red Hat Linux, the default value of the filter is [ "a/.*/" ].

• Linux P2V conversion fails in the beginning with the following error message: 'A general system error occured: <source_server_dns_name>: Connection closed by remote host'
  If the source machine sshd is configured to allow less than 3 unauthenticated connections, it may sever the converter connection.
  Workaround: Check MaxStartups in /etc/ssh/sshd_config and ensure it is either commented out or its first number is 3 or higher.

• P2V conversions of SLES 9 sources cannot complete, if the root directory is located on an LVM disk
  When you select to convert a physical SLES 9 source, Converter Standalone cannot complete the conversion if the root directory is located on an LVM disk. After the conversion job is 99% complete, the job status changes to Failed and the following entry is added to the log:
  FAILED: An error occurred during the conversion: 'Failed to restore original lvm in initrd image: /usr/lib/vmware-converter/restoreLvmInInitrd.sh failed with return code: 1, and message: * Unpacking initrd image /mnt/p2v-src-root//boot/initrd cpio: unsupported cpio format, use newc or crc ERROR: Unable to unpack initrd image /mnt/p2v-src-root//boot/initrd '
  Workaround: Convert the LVM disk to a basic disk.

  1. On the Options page of the Conversion wizard, click Data to copy in the options list.
  2. Click Advanced and select the Destination layout tab.
  3. Select the volume that contains the root directory and click To basic.

• Virtual machines cloned from SLES 11 SP1 sources to ESXi managed destinations boot in console mode
  After the conversion, the destination virtual machine cannot load the GNOME Display Manager and boots in console mode. The following warning message appears:
  GdmLocalIDisplayFactory: maximum number of X display failures reached: check X server log for errors.
  Workaround: Recreate the xorg.conf file.

• X Server might fail to start in destination virtual machines converted from sources that run Linux
  When the destination virtual machine starts, X server might fail to start with an error Fatal X server Error. This is due to incompatibility issues between the display driver used in the Linux source and the display adapter of the destination VMware virtual machine.
  Workarounds:

  • Install VMware Tools on the destination virtual machine.
  • Configure the X server on the destination virtual machine to change the refresh rate and the display resolution.

• Linked cloning of standalone VMware sources to Linux SMB shared destination fails
  Linked cloning tasks of VMware standalone sources to SMB shared destinations that run on Linux fail with the following error:
  converter.fault.FileIOFault.
  Workaround: None.

• The number of LVM logical volumes per volume group is limited to 12 for powered on Linux sources
  During the conversion of powered on Linux machines, Converter Standalone converts LVM volume groups into new disks on the destination virtual machine. The number of LVM logical volumes on a source LVM volume group cannot exceed 12.
  Workaround: Move volumes out of the new disk to other destination disks:

  1. On the Options page of the Conversion wizard, click Data to copy.
  2. From the Data copy type drop-down menu, select Select Volumes to copy and click Advanced.
  3. On the Destination layout tab, select a volume to move and click Move Up or Move Down until it is moved to the destination disk.
     You can move volumes between disks only if they are not Active /boot or System / volumes.
  4. (Optional) To create a new destination disk, click Add Disk.

• By default, the Linux P2V helper virtual machine is powered off when the conversion job finishes
  Workaround: Manually disable this option in the converter-worker.xml file.

  1. On the machine where Converter Standalone server runs, browse to the converter-worker.xml file in the following location %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application Data\VMware\VMware Converter Standalone\.
  2. Open the converter-worker.xml file in a text editor and change the powerOffHelperVm flag from true to false.
  3. To restart Converter Standalone worker:
     Reboot the system or open the Services section in the Microsoft Management Console, find the VMware Converter Worker service and restart it.
  Note: Care should be taken when this option is enabled and the helper VM network is configured to use a static IP address. After the conversion, the helper VM retains the statically configured IP because it is still running. Thus any subsequent Linux P2V jobs cannot use the same static IP until this helper VM is powered off, or at least has its network interface disabled.
  Disabling the powerOffHelperVm flag is useful when the useSourcePasswordInHelperVm Converter Standalone worker flag is enabled. This allows users to log in to the helper virtual machine after conversion.

• Source volumes on top of volume managers other than LVM are not recognized during conversion of powered on Linux machines
  Converter Standalone recognizes only managed source volumes that run on the LVM volume manager. Other volume managers, including but not limited to Veritas Volume Manager (VxVM), are not recognized.
  Workaround: None.

• Converter Standalone does not recognize source volumes that reside on Linux Software RAID configurations
  During cloning of powered on Linux machines, Converter Standalone does not recognize source volumes that are part of a Software RAID configuration (also referred to as multiple disk, or MD, configurations).
  Workaround: None.

• By default, Converter Standalone has a 20 minute timeout when waiting for the helper virtual machine to start up during Linux P2V conversion
  This might cause a Linux P2V conversion task to fail due to connection timeout.
  Workaround: Extend the timeout period (in seconds) by modifying the linuxP2VBootTimeout flag in the converter-worker.xml file.

  1. On the machine where Converter Standalone server runs, browse to the converter-worker.xml file in the following location %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application Data\VMware\VMware Converter Standalone\.
  2. Open the converter-worker.xml file in a text editor and replace the default value for linuxP2VBootTimeout with the necessary timeout value in seconds.
     Note: The timeout value is measured in seconds. To specify the timeout in minutes, multiply the number of minutes by 60 and use that value.
  3. To restart Converter Standalone worker:
     Reboot the system or open the Services section in the Microsoft Management Console, find the VMware Converter Worker service and restart it.

• Destination virtual machine might not boot if you change the disk controller type while converting a Linux virtual machine
  In Linux virtual machines, the root device can be defined using the block device name (such as /dev/sda1) in /boot/grub/grub.conf, /boot/grub/menu.lst, or /etc/fstab. If you change the disk controller type while converting the virtual machine, the destination virtual machine might not boot. This is because the root device now has a different name (for example, it might have been changed to /dev/hda1).
  Workaround: Configure the destination virtual machine manually. At the minimum, change the root device name to reflect its new name in the destination virtual machine. To make your system more robust, use the volume label or UUID instead of the block device name.

• Linux P2V jobs on ESXi 5.0 target hosts fail if the name of the virtual machine is not in ASCII symbols or in the Windows current system locale

  If the target host is ESXi 5.0, the name of the virtual machine must be in ASCII or in the Windows current system locale, otherwise the helper machine cannot be connected and the Linux P2V conversion fails.

  Workaround: Before the conversion, enter the name of the virtual machine by using ASCII symbols. After the conversion is complete, you can rename the virtual machine.