Switching from Parallels to VMWare

VMWare make a converter

why are people so nervous to trying things out? it's easy as eating bread.

What happens if the bread has mold? Or is old and stale?

I'm currently thinking about switching to VMWare as well, and I used that converter on one of my Parallels VMs. The VMWare XP machine boots, but I can't use the keyboard or mouse. At all. Therefore, it's stuck at the login screen. Any ideas? I really was hoping VMWare would have better performance than Parallels but if they can't even get the kb/mouse to work...

mrogers said:

I'm currently thinking about switching to VMWare as well, and I used that converter on one of my Parallels VMs. The VMWare XP machine boots, but I can't use the keyboard or mouse. At all. Therefore, it's stuck at the login screen. Any ideas? I really was hoping VMWare would have better performance than Parallels but if they can't even get the kb/mouse to work...

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Maybe something in VMWare settings about use of Keyboard and Mice. My migration went fine, really easy. VMWare is great, so much better than Parallels.

R.Youden said:

Maybe something in VMWare settings about use of Keyboard and Mice. My migration went fine, really easy. VMWare is great, so much better than Parallels.

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Yeah I've been poking around in the settings but I haven't seen anything. I've compared the settings for a native VMWare virtual machine to my migrated Parallels one, and I don't see any difference. I'll keep looking but if anyone has any ideas I'd love to hear them.

downingp said:

I wasn't even able to import. How do you import?

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I dragged my .pvs file from ~/Documents/Parallels/<virutal machine name>/<virtual machine name>.pvs into the importer, just like it says to do. It took about 20 minutes to convert it I think. I still can't use my keyboard and mouse though, and I haven't been able to find anything about it in the VMWare discussion boards.

downingp said:

the importer is a .exe file though right? So do I need to get the file from the mac side and point it to the converter on the windows side?

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What?? No. It's a Mac app. Open it, drag the PVS file into it, click the button.

EDIT: Ah, I understand your confusion now...psychofreak linked to the wrong importer. This is the one you need to use.

Staying with Parallels

I purchased VMWare and converted my Parallels images. Then Windows came up with the Activate Windows feature because it no longer has the same hardware profile. My serial number is in use in Parallels so I can't switch to VMWare. I wish Microsoft had a deactivate feature in Windows so that I can install it on another machine. I am very disappointed I can't switch to VMWare.

BornAgainMac said:

I purchased VMWare and converted my Parallels images. Then Windows came up with the Activate Windows feature because it no longer has the same hardware profile. My serial number is in use in Parallels so I can't switch to VMWare. I wish Microsoft had a deactivate feature in Windows so that I can install it on another machine. I am very disappointed I can't switch to VMWare.

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Just call them to reactivate. Takes about 5 minutes. They will ask for the number on the activation screen, verify that it's only installed on one machine and you're good to go. I've done it probably a half dozen times since the whole bootcamp/parallels/fusion thing got rolling as I move back and forth through the options.

downingp said:

Try installing the vmware tools. That seemed to get the keyboard and mouse to work

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I'd love to, but I can't do that without logging into Windows first. I'm stuck at that screen with no keyboard/mouse. Brilliant, VMWare. Just brilliant. Can't even provide basic keyboard/mouse drivers until the special ones are loaded. Or can't disable the Parallels ones, or whatever is causing the problem. So much for the importer.

"Switchers", could you please give us any reasons why do you switch from Parallels to VMWare? Really interesting to know. I use Parallels Desktop and like it a lot. I don't have any reasons to switch.

nikopolidis said:

"Switchers", could you please give us any reasons why do you switch from Parallels to VMWare? Really interesting to know. I use Parallels Desktop and like it a lot. I don't have any reasons to switch.

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My biggest thing was that Parallels would not fix the problem where Parallels against a Boot Camp drive would try to reinstall microsoft hot fix KB890859 over and over again. On top of that Fusion supported dual processors so I could debug threaded code, was more responsive, and didn't suck up 400 meg of RAM even when a virtual machine wasn't running.

mrogers said:

I'd love to, but I can't do that without logging into Windows first. I'm stuck at that screen with no keyboard/mouse. Brilliant, VMWare. Just brilliant. Can't even provide basic keyboard/mouse drivers until the special ones are loaded. Or can't disable the Parallels ones, or whatever is causing the problem. So much for the importer.

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You know this is probably Parallels fault and not VMWare. (Or PEBKAC )

All those parallels drivers are specially made for Parallels and will cause conflicts with VMWare.

What you should do is (get a Parallels Trial Key if you need it) run XP(Vista?) in parallels, uninstall parallels tools and then shutdown your virtual machine.

Then use the converter which should work with no issue now.