You might have started out with VirtualBox only to find yourself needing to migrate to the more corporate-friendly and powerful VMWare.

The problem is that VirtualBox and VMWare do not stick to the same standards for the file format.

So in order to get an.ovf VirtualBox file to import into VMWare, you will have to jump through a couple of hoops, which include having to manually modify that.ovf file by hand.

This will, of course, assume you already have your virtual machine working, but powered off.

The wizard is easy to use and will walk you through the few steps necessary to get the virtual machine exported.

The only gotcha is that you need to select the legacy OVF 0.9 file as your format.

This process, depending on how big your virtual machine is, can take quite some time.

Now, for the challenging part, you have to manually edit that descriptor file so that it actually meets the same OVF standards that VMWare follows.

Do NOT open it in a word processor as this will add extra characters to the file, which will render it unreadable by either VirtualBox or VMWare.

Look for a line of code (near the top) that contains this phrase.

The OVF tool is command-line only, and it will convert your newly prepped.ovf file into a.vmx that VMWare can use.

Depending on the size of your virtual appliance, this could take a while.).

The final step is to import the appliance into VMWare Workstation.

To do this, you only need to click File Import and then walk through the user-friendly wizard ( Figure A ).

You want to select Virtual Appliance because that is the only type of source that will accept an.ovf file ( Figure B ).

And the process is not always successful from machine to machine.

The steps outlined above have been the most successful I have used to date.

Does that mean the steps are always 100 successful Not at all, and it wont be until VirtualBox and VMWare can agree on a standard, which will make this task nothing more than a few drop-down menus away from simple.

But until then we are stuck with having to work with steps similar to what I have outlined above.

Its only when you are crossing platforms that the difficulties raise their ugly heads.

Hes covered a variety of topics for over twenty years and is an avid promoter of open source.

For more news about Jack Wallen, visit his website jackwallen.

Convert Virtualbox To Vmware