WMWare and New Mac?

[EMKoper]

Does anyone know if this would work?

1. I have VMWare 2 running on an iMac core-duo with a few virtual machines (Windows 7 and a few linux ones)

2. This evening, I just ordered a new 13" MPB i7 -- I'll get that this coming week.

I would like to migrate these virtual machines to the new laptop. What are the chances I can just transfer these existing virtual machines to the new MBP? What if I run VMWare 3 on the new laptop rather than VMWare 2?

As a geeky engineer (thinking SOA and modular design and virtual machines here, etc) ... if VMWare successfully isolated the OS from the hardware, this SHOULD work just fine...

Any ideas, thoughts? I am going to try and test it either way... if it does work, I'll be very impressed.

Kopes

 

[EMKoper]

VMWare -- and new mac..

OOps... a title without an unfortunate typo would have helped attract the right attention to the thread!

 

[emiljan]

You can copy the vm files from one machine to the other and they will work fine.

Also if you plan to run VMware 3, it will update your vm's to run with the new version.

Just as a precaution, make a back of your vm files which by default are located inside your documents folder in case something goes wrong you have a backup.

 

[EMKoper]

Great -- It sounds like it should just work fine, then! I am usually skeptical about these things, but if/when a simple copy-over of the VM works, I'll be quite happy!

If someone knows anything about Windows 7 "activation" and codes ... if I try to run the VM on the new machine (to verify it works before I dump it from the iMac) what is the status of my license? Have I just busted my Windows 7 EULA and are the Microsoft police going to come find me?

Kopes

 

[triptolemus]

Looks like you're okay - hard to translate the leagalese of EULAs sometimes, but here's a paragraph from the W7 EULA

Use with Virtualization Technologies. Instead of using the software directly on the licensed computer, you may install and use the software within only one virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system on the licensed computer. When used in a virtualized environment, content protected by digital rights management technology, BitLocker or any full volume disk drive encryption technology may not be as secure as protected content not in a virtualized environment. You should comply with all domestic and international laws that apply to such protected content.

Sounds like if you run only ONE at a time, you're fine. Technically, you're 'moving' the Windows installation from one licensed machine to another...

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...cense-to/5b9d248d-83df-4fe6-8d94-62227fa58db6

As the article above indicates, you may need to contact MS - doubtful though. Really I would just run W7 on the new VM install and it'll all probably be fine.

 

[EMKoper]

Didn't work..

OK, copying the VM over and simply double clicking on it (which initiates VMware) the machine/OS won't open ... it starts and then stops ... in this case I show my BackTrap VM here:

ERROR: "Cannot open the disk '/Users/myname/Documents/Virtual Machines.localized/BackTrap.vmwarevm/BackTrap.vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on. Reason: Failed to lock the file."

Any Ideas on what this means? It did, the first time, ask me if the file was 'moved' or 'copied' ... I said it was 'copied' of course....

Kopes