This utility will convert a running Windows system to a VHD (virtual hard drive) file for use in Microsoft’s virtual machine products, such as the Hyper-V virtual machine tool included with professional versions of Windows 8 and 8.1. Microsoft offers a Disk2vhd tool - one of their many useful SysInternals utilities. RELATED: How to Create and Run Virtual Machines With Hyper-V Save that virtual machine to an external hard drive and boot it up on a different computer. The utility will then create a virtual machine from the current Windows system, modifying it so it will boot properly in a virtual machine program. Choose a VMware Workstation, VMware Player, or VMware Fusion virtual machine as the destination and configure the options for the virtual machine. Click the “Convert machine” button on the toolbar and select the current, powered-on computer as the source.
You could also boot it up in VMware Workstation or VMware Fusion.ĭownload vCenter Converter from VMware and launch it on the computer you want to turn into a virtual machine. You can then boot these virtual machines in VMware’s free VMware Player application, so this can be a completely free solution. It can convert both Windows and Linux physical machines into VMware virtual machines. VMware offers a free tool known as VMware vCenter Converter. RELATED: Beginner Geek: How to Create and Use Virtual Machines
