How to convert a VMware image to a VirtualBox

Virtual machines are heavily used nowadays. You can use them to test new operating systems, test software, run old applications ...

Two of the most popular virtual machines are Vmware and Virtualbox each having their positive and negative sides. You will spend most of your time creating and setting up the VM, but if you want to migrate from VMware to Virtualbox here is a solution.

Info:

Make sure that both machines (VM) are in "Power off" mode and not in "Suspended" or "Paused" mode.
In my case I use Vmware Workstation, for people who use Vmware Player the procedure is the same!


Migrating from VMware to VirtualBox



To start, we need to export the VM to a ".ovf" file. To do this, open the folder where VMware is located in "Programs Files" in Disk C. Go to the "VMware Workstation" folder then click on the "OVFTool" folder by pressing "Shift + right click" and select "Open A command window here ".

In the Command window, type the command below and tap "Enter." Do not forget to change the command with the destination of the file you want to change and the destination for the new file ".ovf".

Ovftool "c: Destination_of_file_a_modifyExample.vmx" "c: Destination_of_modified_file_example.ovf"

Then, import the file "Test.ovf" into VirtualBox. To do this, click on the "File" menu and then "Import a virtual application".

Then find the file ".ovf" that you have converted and click "Next".

If you ever get the following message by clicking "Next". Go to the bottom of this article before continuing !!

Here you can change the settings according to your needs and machine, but you can still do this later and click "Import".

Importing is in progress.

In case you get an error here is what to do:

Open the file "Test.ovf" with Notepad ++ and replace all terms "ElementName" with "Caption." To do this, type "Ctrl + F" and on the menu click "Replace" then in the "Search" box type "ElementName" and in the "Replace with" box, type "Caption". Click "Replace All"

Do the same procedure for "vmware.sata.ahci" which you replace with "AHCI".

Now go to the site onlinemd5 and upload the file "Test.ovf" after the upload completed you will get in the field "File Checksum" a code that must be copied.

Once you have copied the code. Open the "Test.mf" file using Notepad ++ and replace the code at the line "SHA1 (Test.ovf) =" with the one above.

You just have to start the conversion if you had the error otherwise you just need to launch the VM on VirtualBox.