This post is a step by step explaining how to convert a Parallels Virtual Machine to a VirtualBox Virtual Machine.
If this post helps you out, I’m collecting money for Christies Cancer Hospital and it would be good if you could contribute a small donation. Details at the bottom…
I use Windows on my Mac in two ways: Vista Premium through bootcamp and Windows 7 and Windows XP as virtual machines through the OSX desktop.
Previously I was using Parallels to run my virtual machines but since my trial version expired I wasn’t able to access my virtual OS any more. Then I came across Sun’s free offering VirtualBox (in this walkthrough I’m running VirtualBox version 2.1.4) – it does everything I need, and it’s free!
The only pickle with switching virtual machine software was I didn’t want the hassle of re-loading Windows XP as I’d spent some time building it up/adding programs etc under Parallels.
After much googling I came across a number of solutions, however, none as easy as the one I am suggesting here. If anyone else is in the same situation, I hope it helps:
Converting a Parallels virtual machine to VirtualBox:
1. Download the trial version of VMWare Fusion (I used version 2.0.2.)
2. Once installed, start VMWare Fusion, and choose File > Import from the menu
3. Browse to the Parallels folder (if it doesn’t default there) and choose the appropriate directory (e.g. Windows XP) and then choose the relevant file ending in .pvs e.g. Windows XP.pvs
You’ll now see a window like this:
4. Click the Import button. Choose a name & location for the new machine and click ‘Save’
5. Watch something on TV, go walk the dog, contemplate life. Whatever you do, it will probably take a good 30 mins.
6. Eventually you will get a confirmation message. Great so far. Trouble is, we don’t want it to work in VMWare Fusion, we want it to work in VirtualBox. So…
7. Using the Finder locate the new VMWare Fusion version of the Windows XP virtual machine (the file will be wherever you saved it in Step 5 and will end with a .vmwarevm extension e.g. ‘Windows XP.vmwarevm’). Now right-click the file and select ‘Open Enclosing Folder’ from the menu.
8. From the next Finder window, right click on the same file again but now choose ‘Show Package Contents’.
9. In the window that now opens, copy all those files (most end .vmdk) and paste them into a new folder someplace else. I called mine ‘WINXP’ and saved it on the desktop but you can put it anywhere you like.
10. Shut down VMWare Fusion
11. Open VirtualBox
12. Click ‘New’, then ‘Next’, then name your OS e.g. ‘Windows XP’ and choose the relevant settings on the two drop downs below. Here is what I mean:
13. Now click ‘Next’, accept the defaults on the next screen and click ‘Next’ again.
14. On the next screen (headed as ‘Virtual Hard Disk’), click the ‘Existing’ button.
15. On the window that opens, click ‘Add’ on the top menu and browse to the folder you made in Step 9. Choose the file name e.g. winxp.vmdk (don’t choose the numbered ones e.g. winxp-s016.vmdk) and click ‘Open’.
16. Back on the main screen now, click ‘Next’ again and then ‘Finish’.
Et Voila! You now have your Parallels machine working in VirtualBox.
**If that worked/helped, show your appreciation by sending a donation. All the money I receive here will be donated to Christies Cancer Hospital (based in Manchester here in the UK).**
I’m trying to go direct from VMWare to Virtualbox and followed your instructions, but when I go to start the VM, it just hangs at the point where the screen is black with a white bar along the bottom (ie before even booting properly into Windows). Would it have anything to do with trying to import from a VMWare whose demo period has already expired?
John, I’m not sure, I’ve only ever come from a Parallels VM to VirtualBox. However, I have done that successfully with a Parallels VM that had expired (was setup on a demo of Parallels which had since expired) and had no problems. Not sure if the same can be done with VMWare machines where the licence has expired, sorry.
Hi John,
Not sure if this is any help in working out why it’s not working but when I tried to perform the Parallels Vista 64 Ultimate to VMWare Fusion (in preparation to go to VirtualBox), I got an error in VMWare saying that my VM Session hadn’t shut down cleanly during the import.
I guess I just rebooted the Mac one time and never restarted Parallels as the trial 14 days had expired.
Anyway off to Parallels site to register and get another 14 days, re-install a new Parallels, restart Vista and shut it down properly fixed the problem and now I’ve got a VMWare conversion.
So, maybe your Windows OS hadn’t shutdown correctly and VirtualBox didn’t pick it up like VMWare did for me.
Just a thought! Anyway, you should be able to get another trial key from VMWare.
Hope you get some luck.
I’m just at the stage of checking VMWare runs my Vista install ok.
Hmmm, well VMWare did it’s initial stuff, restarted Vista and nicely cleaned off all the contents of my desktop. Any idea where it would have put the files ???
Ok, ignore me, I’m going mad. Just restarted my parallels VM and realised the desktop icons that seemed to be missing in VMWare conversion were actually the Mac’s Desktop icons and VMWare wasn’t setup to do it’s Unity thing !!!
These steps worked perfectly for me in transferring a Vista virtual machine from Parallels. I had a second virtual hard drive in Parallels, so I just had to add it to VirtualBox after the fact. The only thing I neglected was to uninstall ParallelsTools in Parallels prior to doing the conversion — doesn’t seem like it can be easily uninstalled once the machine is in VirtualBox.
Thanks for documenting this solution. I was wondering how I was going to migrate my Parallels 2.5 installation to VirtualBox, and now I know!
Thank you SO MUCH for these instructions! The first time I went through them, importing an Ubuntu installation, I got some strange errors (invalid magic number?!?) at step 15 trying to import the converted vmdk. The solution was to restart VirtualBox, open the Virtual Media Manager and add the vmdk FIRST. This worked fine. Then I created the VM and added the vmdk, and everything worked.
For anybody experiencing the same problem as John above, try checking the “Enabled IO APIC” box in the VirtualBox settings.
Ben – Thank you for the “Enable IO APIC” trick. That fixed the non-boot issue I was having.
ben, thanks much! worked like a charm for me as well.
peace,
chris
Ben– that fix was a huge help for me too. Now I can finish my server migration and enjoy Christmas without that hanging over me. I owe you!
Ben that was spot on. Thanks for the tip mate.
Cheers,
Alpay
Hmm, even when I check “Enable IO APIC”, I’m having problems. I am able to get to the Win XP loading screen, then I get the BSOD and it rebbots. If I start XP in Safe Mode, the system seems to hang when loading “agp440.sys”:
[URL=http://imgur.com/svA6U.jpg][IMG]http://imgur.com/svA6U.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
Never mind. It seems to be a problem with that agp440.sys driver & Virtualbox.
Regarding Parallel Tools. According to this site:
http://download.parallels.com/desktop/v5/docs/en/Parallels_Desktop_Users_Guide/23651.htm
it can be uninstalled from Mac OS.
Since my demo is expired, how can I uninstall parral tools without start my virtual machine?
yannick – if you follow the steps above you won’t need to even start Parallels.
Thank you, thank you. This was an enormous help moving my VM off of Parallels.
Commenter Ben – Thanks for the “Enabled IO APIC” tip. Really saved the day!
Quick word of thanks, Ben.
Your instructions worked A-OK. I now have my vintage Parallels 2.x VM reincarnated as a VBox affair. Had lost the ability to run the creaky old version of Parallels after moving to Snow Leopard.
Santiago, your welcome. Thanks for responding as well – good to know when it’s helped someone out.
I have tried a few methods found on the net today to transfer a Parallels 5 WinXP VM to VirtualBox on a Mac and have spent HOURS watching 24GB files transfer back and forth between my PC & Mac. Your method took well under an hour and worked (second time – after applying the IO APIC fix) and the whole thing happened on my Mac. Some of the names and dialogs have changed slightly with the latest versions but everything was obvious from what you had written. THANK YOU!!
Excellent Jeremy, glad it helped.
Worked great on my end! Thank you so much!!
By the way, for those who aren’t really familiar with mac, the vmdk that you will have to use as a hard disk is within a package file. Assuming the parallels vm that you imported to vmware is named RHEL_VM, you have to right click on the said VM then choose “Show Package Contents”.
Hope this helps.
Just a question amongst this knowledgable bunch (and apologies for the slight deviation from topic)… this method does not work for running a bootcamp installation of Windows virtually, does it?
I.e, Am I able to use the above method in order to run a single Windows install on my macbook both with bootcamp AND virtualbox?
I suspect I will need to purchase Parallels or VMWare, but I would appreciate if someone more knowledgeable could confirm. Thanks!
The virtual machine booted successfully in VirtualBox but won’t accept any keyboard or mouse inputs. Basically, I have a perfect XP in front of me except that I can’t do anything with it because it won’t accept any inputs. Any ideas?
A few actions out of the lines above:
1. After import the Parallels machine into VMware Fusion, I made it work under VMware and uninstalled Paralles tools.
2. During the booting under VMware, I installed numerous newly found hardware. However, I was careful enough that I did not install VMWare Tools.
Thanks.
I having the same issue. No keyboard or mouse input. ;(
Is it necessary to remove Parallels tools? Some sites say it is. Will your method work with the newly released Vbox 4.0?
Hi,
I cannot find any pvs extention, only a .pvm which I tried and was accepted by VMWare Fusion demo. I have followed every step, but when I try ti run windows on the virtual machine it just shows an empty screen. I guess .pvm does not replace .pvs that easy, but leaves me thinking why it was accepted in the first place and took half an hour to process! Is there any turnaround that you know of?
thanks!
Greetings,
I’m trying to migrate directly from VMware to VirtualBox, so this tutorial may not work, but I’m hoping it does. However, one issue may be that I don’t believe my VM was properly shut down before the trial expired. Perhaps, this has something to do with the error. I also noticed that there is a sleepimage that VMware left on my HD (close to 4GBs), so my guess is that I left it in a suspended state last time I used VMware to operate my VM. I’d really like to get on VirtualBox since it’s free.
When trying to read my hard .vmdk file, virtual box came up with the following error:
Callee RC:
NS_ERROR_CALL_FAILED (0x800706BE)
Any thoughts on this one?
Thanks in advance!
Thanks for the “Enabled IO APIC” solution! You, sir, rock!
Hi,
after updating to OS X Lion 10.7.1, I found out that parallels 4.0 didn’t work anymore (no 64 bit support) and as I didn’t want to spend money on an upgrade for parallels I came across this thread.
So I downloaded the latest trial version of parallels and was able to start up my VISTA ultimate virtual machine but had to fix hardware drivers, sound and network. Looks like the virtual components are named different in parallels 6. Did the same for my Ubuntu Linux machine and this worked fine.
I downloaded the latest trial version of VMware fusion and imported the virtual Vista machine. I started Vista and it needed a lot of new hardware drivers. Windows updates had to installed although this was not the case under parallels.After the updates I had a working system. Imported Ubuntu and this was working fine.
After copying the package contents I tried to start Vista under Virtual box and I am getting blue screens. Ubuntu is working fine.
Any help is appreciated
Great Tutorial! Thank you very much.
Worked like a charm. Only prob I ran into: Parallels messes with Windows paths in order to point it to shared folders. You can get the registry straight by hand, or you use Microsofts Fixit for that: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/886549
I appreciate the clarity of your process. My specific challenge is that I need a trial copy of an earlier version of VMWare rather than the latest one which will not run on my 2006 vintage macbook. If anyone has any idea of where I can find one, that would be awesome. My Parallels VM I wish to convert is a version 3 hdd file. I’m already running VirtualBox successfully but would like to rescue my old XP VM is possible.
Sorry, I don’t have access to any prior versions of VM Ware. I trust you have already emailed their support team to ask whether they have a download link for it?
A quick post to say thanks to Timothy Thompson and Martin Meldrum for the donations which I have sent to Christies. Kudos to you both. Glad the step by step helped you out.
slight issue of a blue screen……. i have files that I don’t want to lose what do i do do i attempt the restore???
“Enabled IO APIC” solution! Thank You!