Desktop Virtualization portal


Feb

7

How To Convert VMware Server 2.0 Beta VMs into VMware Server 1.0.4

If you would like to keep track of all the updates on this website, please subscribe to the Desktop Virtualization RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

I've just finished the first round of VMware Server 2.0 beta testing, and although I quite like the product, it's still not stable enough for my needs, and so I've decided to fall back to VMware Server 1.0.4.

But what happens is that every time you try to use the VMware Server 2.0 virtual machine in VMware Server 1.0.4, you get an error like this:

VMware Server Console error message

"Configuration file was created by a VMware product with more features than this version" may be a correct statement, but chances are that you won't need any of the new features of VMware Server 2.0 to use standard VMs.

Because of this, you can use a simple hack to make the new VMs work with older version of VMware Server: simply change the hardware version back.

Here's how you do it:

1) Fix the VM configuation file

Go to the directory with all the files for your VM (V:\indiana in my example), and edit the VM configuration file – the one with .vmx extension.

Change this line (should be close to the top of the file):

virtualHW.version = "6″

to this

virtualHW.version = "4″

2) Fix the VM disk configuration file

In exactly the same manner, fix the virtual machine disk file (.vmdk one:

ddb.virtualHWVersion = "6″

to look like this:

ddb.virtualHWVersion = "4″

That's all you need! After these two quick fixes your VM will be happily recognized by VMware Server 1.0.4. Enjoy!

Comments

34 Responses to “How To Convert VMware Server 2.0 Beta VMs into VMware Server 1.0.4”

  1. Steve Parsons on April 4th, 2008 9:43 pm

    You are the MAN! Easy enough……yet so hard to find.

    thanks

  2. Gleb Reys on April 5th, 2008 4:31 am

    Hi Steve,

    Glad to have helped!

    See you around!

  3. Vijay on April 11th, 2008 1:56 am

    One issue with my .vmdk file being 4GB. (Can't open it to edit it). Any advice?

  4. Gleb Reys on April 11th, 2008 3:55 am

    Hi Vijay,

    The vmdk file you're after is a small one in size. Depending on how your VM disk was created, you could have two files: YOUR_VM-flat.vmdk and YOUR_VM.vmdk.

    In that case the flat file will be the actual disk image, 4Gb or whatever you set it to, while the other file will contain all the configuration.

    If you have only 1 vmdk file, and it's the disk image by the look of its size, then you don't need to follow this step of the procedure.

    Good luck!

  5. Shmulik Elmakies on May 13th, 2008 12:56 pm

    As vijay, my vmdk file is the image. So I don't get the above error, but I can't start the machine. I get this:
    One or more of the disks used by this virtual machine was created by an unsupported version of VMware Server. To power on or upgrade the virtual machine, either remove the unsupported disk(s) or use a version of VMware Server that supports this version of disks. Below is a list of the disks and their reported versions.

    Version 6 lnx-dev.vmdk

  6. Shmulik Elmakies on May 13th, 2008 2:13 pm

    Hi, I should emphasize that there is no file as lnx-dev-flat.mdk, only the binary lnx-dev.vmdk which I cannot edit.

    Shmulik

  7. Peter on May 19th, 2008 4:16 pm

    For linux/cygwin users, the large binary file can be modified as follows:

    dd "if=source.vmdk" | sed "/virtualHWVersion = \"6\"/s//virtualHWVersion = \"4\"/" > modified.vmdk

    (By using dd you can send it a kill -SIGUSR1 and it'll print how far through the file the processing is. Otherwise change the command so it's simply to sed … modified.vmdk)

  8. Gleb Reys on May 19th, 2008 4:57 pm

    Thanks for an excellent advice, Peter!

  9. Karola on May 20th, 2008 10:36 am

    Any advice for windows users on this issue?
    Thanks
    Karola

  10. Shmulik on May 21st, 2008 3:01 pm

    Cheers Peter – That works!

  11. lance on May 26th, 2008 9:18 pm

    advice for windows users would be a big help ;)

  12. Shmulik on May 27th, 2008 7:54 am

    Karola, what's the question?

  13. Peter on May 27th, 2008 12:54 pm

    If you install cygwin which gives you a command prompt at which you can run that command I posted for Linux users; the one thing to remember is that in cygwin C:\ becomes /cygdrive/c/

  14. Andrew Rosca on May 27th, 2008 5:29 pm

    Another option for Windows is to use a disk sector editor (HxD works well and is free) to modify the data directly on disk, without opening the file.

  15. VMWare trick: usar màquines virtuals creades en versions més noves en motors vells | oriolrius.cat on June 2nd, 2008 11:45 am

    [...] arreglar aquest problema, almenys jo ho he pogut fer gràcies a le notes de l'article: How To Convert VMware Server 2.0 Beta VMs into VMware Server 1.0.4 escrit a Desktop [...]

  16. Yvon on June 8th, 2008 12:16 am

    For Windows users:
    I used uedit32.exe to open the big vmdk file made the modification and saved it.

    It work.

  17. Timo on July 1st, 2008 1:09 pm

    My .vmdk file is 120 GB and i´ve no other file called flat.vmdk!
    What could i do ?

  18. Martin Cleaver on July 3rd, 2008 2:40 am

    Hmm. Thanks.

    VMware server console just died when I tried this. :(

  19. Gleb Reys on July 3rd, 2008 10:45 am

    Martin,

    Were you able to restart the console? I presume this could have happened if server was still trying to manage (run) the same VM which you altered. Obviously, VM needs to be offlined before you make any changes. It's just that due to the problem VM is usually offline anyway as it won't start until you fix the version number.

  20. Martin Cleaver on July 3rd, 2008 12:52 pm

    Y, I restarted the console but the same thing happens over and over again.

    I even restarted vmware (service vmware stop; service vmware stop). Same thing happens when I try to open it again.

    The only other thing I can think of is that the image has a snapshot. I'd happily delete that if it means the image can work on vmware server 1.0.x

    Vmware server 2.0 rc1 is out, I know; I'd rather avoid that I think.

  21. Martin Cleaver on July 3rd, 2008 12:58 pm

    I'm in #vmware on irc.freenode.net, by the way.

  22. ページ作者のぼやき on July 11th, 2008 1:07 am

    VMWare Serverか？…

    サミットも終わり、ここ2週間、あれだけいた警官の姿もすっかり無くなってしまった。街はいつもの景色に。厳戒態勢は解かれたようだ。あそこまで警備したからこそテロは起きなかっ…

  23. Jack B Nimble on July 17th, 2008 3:35 am

    If you're a windows user, well, tough luck, coz you shouldn't be using it :-P

    p.s. Thanx Gleb!

  24. AndyD on September 22nd, 2008 10:07 am

    Thanks Gleb….gr8 info :)

  25. Lngstone on October 9th, 2008 11:36 am

    For Windows Users.
    To edit very large files, such as .vmdk disks, you can install a HEX Editor.
    I tested, as an example, the freeware
    http://www.free-hex-editor.com/.
    You have to pay great attention to change only the number 6 to 4 and do nothing else, or your virtual drive may become unusable.
    Obviously I suggest to do a bcakup, first… :-)

  26. Gleb Reys on October 15th, 2008 10:11 am

    Thanks everyone for constantly adding more useful tips on this problem!

  27. klumpen on November 3rd, 2008 9:29 am

    Got an error after running dd to change the virtualHWVersion.

    "unable to get the information for disk (SCSI 0:0)
    Unable to open file /vmware/backup/backup.vmdk": this file specified is not a virtual disk.

  28. Newbies on November 12th, 2008 4:09 am

    Thanks for ur input..It really help ! U r the man..Save my life..

  29. R.S.Stucchi on November 27th, 2008 7:40 pm

    Thanks a lot.

  30. Hara Hara on December 10th, 2008 5:20 am

    Thanks dude. Saved me a lot of time

  31. brent vermillion on January 14th, 2009 10:29 pm

    You are a vmware god! Muchisimo gracias, hombre!

  32. Pankaj on March 25th, 2009 4:52 am

    Thanks a lot for this tip:

    For VMWARE server version 2.0.0 virtualHWVersion is 7 instead of 6..

  33. Geos on April 8th, 2009 9:14 pm

    You're a VM saviour – Thanks!

  34. Live on June 16th, 2009 4:18 pm

    Here's what happened:

    My VMware is version 6.5.

    I installed a Guest OS (Windows Server 2008) with 50gb virtual drive C.

    I created a 2nd virtual disk of 30gb as drive D.

    I had another Guest OS (WinXP) – BUT it was created with VMware version 6.

    I wanted to mount storage D to this WinXP – just to see if it can recognize it, turned out it didn't.

    But because of your blog, I did this:

    1. Edited Windows XP .vmx file changed it to version 7 from 6.

    2. Didn't have to edit storage drive 20gb anymore because it is already version 7.

    In other words, you just need to match both vmx and vmdk files to same versions.

    Hope this helps.

Leave a Reply