Problem importing XP Pro local machine

[wmbell65]

Hi all,

I am having an issue importing my local machine into VMWare... I am getting the error "Unable to determine Guest Operating System".

I am running VMWare Ace edition 6.0.3 build 80004 (most recent) on XP Pro with service pack 2 etc. Is there a way to determine where the import tool is looking for the OS info or a work around?

[Peter_vm]

You may try to use VMware Converter. It worked for me many times:

http://www.vmware.com/download/converter/

[wmbell65]

Let me try that to see if that will work.... I am also "downgrading" my VMWare 6 to a prior patch level... I had done this before with 6.0 (base I think) on the same machine so I also want to see if it is something that broke as part of applying a patch....

[continuum]

>Is there a way to determine where the import tool is looking for the OS info or a work around?

Make sure you have a nice simple one option only boot.ini

___________________________________

description of vmx-parameters:

VMware-liveCD:

[wmbell65]

I have a default boot.ini as far as I can tell...Here is the contents:

timeout=30

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /usepmtimer

I also downgraded to 6.0.2 build 59824 with a similar result.... I did however download VMWare converter and it worked fine (so the immediate pressure to get this working is off)... So I am not sure if there is an issue with the Workstation or if there is an issue with the windows installation.... on my machine...

The ultimate goal is to get the system into a VM image and have it run under VMWare on Linux on the same hardware... i.e. virtualize the XP environment, copy off to external storage then load up 64-bit Linux and VMWare for Linux and run the XP under linux.... Is this a viable option or am I going into a rat hole and would be better off creating a fresh VMWare image under Linux?

Thanks for the help and suggestions... I am kind of new to this sort of thing