Introducing the VM Conversion tool in Windows Admin Center – Public Preview
As organizations update their infrastructure, a growing number are seeking adaptable, Microsoft-supported solutions that address current requirements while laying the path for future cloud and AI adoption. Azure provides an agile, scalable, cost-effective platform for infrastructure and innovation. Whether by modernizing to cloud technologies like Windows or Linux VMs, containers, Azure VMware Solution or PaaS services, Azure offers a world-class cloud experience. However, we recognize that some organizations must retain workloads on-premises due to data compliance, governance, or other regulatory requirements. For customers wanting to adopt Windows Server and Hyper-V for this use case, we are excited to provide a new option within Windows Admin Center, the VM Conversion tool, in public preview now. This agentless, cost-free tool streamlines the conversion of virtual machines from VMware to Windows Server with Hyper-V, providing customers flexibility with their on-premises virtualization environments while enabling a seamless transition path to Azure when desired. With minimal infrastructure requirements, the tool is particularly beneficial for small and medium-sized organizations. Additionally, with minimal setup time you can download the new VM Conversion tool extension in Windows Admin Center and begin converting virtual machines in under five minutes. Figure 1- VM Conversion tool in Windows Admin Center 🔑Key Features : Agentless, appliance-free discovery After establishing a connection to the virtualization environment, the tool conducts discovery of all virtual machines without requiring agents or appliances and does so in a non-intrusive manner. Minimal downtime The VM Conversion tool enables initial data replication while the source virtual machine remains operational, thereby preventing any interruptions to ongoing applications. After completing this initial replication, on user consent, the source VM is powered down so a subsequent replication pass can capture any data changes made during the first phase. This two-step process ensures that the cutover time from the source to the target VM is minimized. Group servers You can select and migrate up to 10 virtual machines at a time. This reduces manual effort and accelerates the transition to Windows Server. Boot configuration The tool automatically maps BIOS-based virtual machines to Generation 1 and UEFI-based machines to Generation 2, preserving boot configurations and ensuring compatibility. OS agnostic The tool supports conversion of both Linux and Windows guest OS VMs to Windows Server host. Multi-disk VM support Virtual machines that use several virtual hard disks—common in production environments—are fully supported. The operating system, data, and application disks all migrated together, so manual setup is not needed. ⚙️How It Works To ensure a smooth and reliable transition, the tool performs a comprehensive set of built-in prechecks. These checks validate critical VM attributes such as disk types, boot configuration (BIOS or UEFI), destination disk, memory requirements, and several more. By identifying potential issues early, administrators can proactively address them—minimizing the risk of migration failures and reducing downtime during the final cutover. The VM Conversion tool uses change block tracking (CBT) to efficiently replicate data from one virtual disk format to another. During the initial seeding phase, a full copy of the virtual machine is created while it remains online. This minimizes downtime and ensures data integrity. Before the final cutover, a delta replication captures all changes made since the initial copy, ensuring the destination VM is fully up-to-date post conversion to Hyper-V hosts. 🚀Ready to Take the Next Step? The VM Conversion tool is available now in the public feed of Windows Admin Center. You can install it directly from the Extensions settings in Windows Admin Center. To get started, ensure you're running the Windows Admin Center v2 GA release. 📘 For detailed setup instructions and prerequisites, refer to the Public Preview Documentation. 📍 Summary The VM Conversion tool offers a simple, supported path for organizations to streamline VM conversion to Hyper-V virtualization environments. With no added cost and minimal setup, it empowers customers to streamline VM migration and prepare for the cloud at their own pace. Support for Azure Arc-enabled servers is also planned for future releases, further enhancing hybrid management capabilities. We’re continuously evolving the VM Conversion tool based on user feedback. Please continue to share your feedback here and help us prioritize our efforts for future releases. Happy converting!Azure VMware Solution (AVS) for VMware Admins Primer
It’s funny to think there was such a pushback on virtualization when it first came out versus being the norm for most of us now. As a VMware admin myself, I remember all the discussion with application teams trying to convince them we could run their application on a virtual machine. Informing people that a vMotion would not impact the uptime and could potentially optimize performance on another ESXi host with more resources free, or how HA (High Availability) being built in results in a simple reboot with minimal downtime to the virtual machine and application.
Teams in VMware Horizon
We are in the process of deploying Teams to our virtual desktops. We are running VMware Horizon 7.8 and using non-persistent instant clones desktops. I installed Teams onto my Golden Image based on the instructions in this: https://communities.vmware.com/blogs/MSTeamsWithVMwareVDI/2020/05/29/microsoft-teams-with-vmware-vdi-app-volumes-dem and this https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/teams-for-vdi. The problem we are having is when I log into a desktop the 1st time, Teams attempts to launch but never does. We just get a white box on the screen. However, if we logout of that desktop and login again (we grab a different desktop), teams launches fine. We are using VMware UEM for the caching of credentials. I am looking for a solution to the problem of it not launching on the first attempt. I do not want our users to have to login a desktop, have Teams attempt to launch and when it doesn't. logout of the desktop and login again. What suggestions does anyone have? Thank you
Windows Server Standard 2012 R2 virtualized on VMware vSphere Essential Plus Kit.
Hi There I have couple of doubts for which need your expert advice have approx 25 guest VMs of Windows 2012R2 virtualized on vSphere Essential Plus across 3 physical hosts. My servers are getting retired and quickly need replacement. From a licensing prespective can I move the same guest VMs and the licenses to the new server and if so how-please share the necessary steps and dependency if any. Also 2012 R2 will be supported till what time.
Repost: Dynamic Memory Coming to Hyper-V Part 5…
First published on TECHNET on May 20, 2010 =====================================================================Preamble: The point of this series, and the spirit in which it is written, is to take a holistic approach at the issues facing our customers, discuss the complexities with regard to memory management and explain why we’re taking the approach we are with Hyper-V Dynamic Memory.
VMWare Esxi UI vm window inverted
Hello, I have a visualization issue when I connect to the web viewer of VMWare Esxi 6.5 UI: with Dev Channel browser, if I load the screen of the virtual machine inside the tab, go to another tab and the come back to the vm tab, the screen inside the tab that shows the vm is inverted. I attach a screenshot.
