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JonathanBrotto-7145 avatar image
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JonathanBrotto-7145 asked AmitaMenon-3691 edited

Possible to convert server to vitural machine and then transfer to another box?

I was researching Hyper-V and virtual desktops. I was wondering if I could take a normal windows server desktop with all the applications and convert it to a virtual desktop or virtual desktop file and then migrate it to a different box running the same version of windows.

I am using windows server 2012 R2

windows-serverwindows-server-hyper-vwindows-server-2012azure-virtual-desktop
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MicoMi-MSFT avatar image
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MicoMi-MSFT answered JonathanBrotto-7145 commented

Here is a doc about How to Convert a Physical Machine to Hyper-V VM using MVMC/ Disk2VHD, also including some Possible Issues of P2V.
MVMC can convert the entire physical machine or VMware virtual machine including all disks to a Hyper-V VM.
Disk2VHD can convert physical disks to virtual disks, but cannot convert the entire virtual machine.
You can follow the guide and have a try:
https://www.nakivo.com/blog/convert-physical-machine-hyper-v-vm/

Thanks for your time!
Best Regards,
Mico Mi


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Just curious as I am in a situation where I have the 2 similar servers running windows 2012 R2 but the newer one has better specs. Was wondering with my old box convert to hyper-v file transfer to the newer box and still be able to boot directly from that file?

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DSPatrick avatar image
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DSPatrick answered DSPatrick commented

The cleaner safer method is to stand up a new one from installation media, patch fully, migrate roles or applications over to it. Another option is some method of P2V
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/disk2vhd

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Best approach to migrate is not to use a virtualization?

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DSPatrick avatar image DSPatrick JonathanBrotto-7145 ·

Best approach to migrate is not to use a virtualization?

Virtualization is fine, P2V is risky.

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Just to understand my non virtualized server is OK but it would have been best to setup as a virtual machine by default as to move it over to a different server more easily?

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Just to understand my non virtualized server is OK but it would have been best to setup as a virtual machine by default as to move it over to a different server more easily?

You asked about virtualizing an existing installation of windows. Its risky but P2V is possible. The cleaner and much safer option is to stand up an new virtual machine on destination host, patch it fully, then methodically migrate the roles and or applications over to new one.

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hyper-v file transfer to the newer box and still be able to boot directly from that file?

Not sure what is meant. Hyper-v is a virtualization role. If you P2V the existing then it would run as a virtualization guest on the new host.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/disk2vhd

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It will not boot native then?

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You might review here how hyper-v works. Host boots then guest can be set to also auto startup.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/virtualization/hyper-v/hyper-v-technology-overview


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