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How to Migrate from VirtualBox to Parallels

I have a bunch of VirtualBox VMs that work fine under VBox, and I’d like to use them with Parallels Desktop 8 on Macintosh. Sadly, Parallels is not able to import them as-is, and researching this via the Parallels KB has not been effective.  Searching the web I find plenty of instructions of how to transfer from Parallels to VirtualBox, but not how to migrate from VirtualBox to Parallels. So we’re doing the Salmon going upstream thing again. In the Parallels website I found a KB article about making the Library folder visible, but that is not the problem, as my VM files are not stored in a library folder made invisible by OSX Lion or Mtn Lion.

I believe the correct procedure is:

In VirtualBox:

* Launch the VM that you’d like to convert and make sure the guest OS is shut down properly.

* In the VirtualBox Manager, right-click on this VM and Clone. Make a Full, complete clone that will NOT have any snapshots. This is an important step because Parallels can not import a VM that includes snapshots, but you may not want to lose the saved VM snapshots in case you need to revert to them. So making a clone is a good way to get both, even if it requires a lot of temp hard drive space.  This step can take several minutes or more. You will want to give this version of your VM a descriptive name so it will be easy for you to tell them apart. Cloning will require plenty of available hard drive space, make sure you have at least 3x the size of the VM, including all parts. Make sure you pay attention to where you save the clone – you’re going to need to know where it is.

* Launch the new clone of your VM, and un-install the VBox Guest Additions. For example; if the VM is Win7, you’ll find them off the Start-> All Programs-> Oracle VM Virtual Guest Additions -> Uninstall

* Shut down the guest OS properly. Sleep/hibernate will not work here.

In Parallels Desktop 8 For Mac:

* Launch Parallels, but do not start any VMs.

* File -> Open…  Select your new clone, the file name will end with VBox, and there will be a much larger .VDI file next to it.

* Parallels ought to import this without problems, allow some time for it to make a whole new copy as a .pvm file, then it will automatically install the Parallels tools which are similar to VBox Guest Additions.

* A couple more dialog boxes & Guest OS restarts & you ought to be good to go. You’ve migrated your VBox virtual machines to Parallels, whihc made a new copy of the VM virtual hard drive (so you now have 3).
At some point you can delete that intermediate “Clone” file set (.vbox), just make sure to delete the correct one, not the one with snapshot nor the new pvm. (Or keep it as a backup!)

BTW:

I’m not necessarily endorsing either Parallels nor Virtual Box here, nor saying one is better than the other. I just wanted to try Parallels and the first problem I encountered was how to convert the VMs I already have set up.

The reason I’m trying Parallels is that it is of special interest to me to run old PPC apps on a new Mac with OSX 10.8 Mtn Lion (Mountain Lion). I tried about a dozen different things, and several different systems, including VirtualBox and VMWare Fusion, but Parallels & Lion Server 10.5.x seems to be the answer for this. Once you select the right tools for the job, it’s pretty easy. I’m now able to run FileMaker Pro v6 on a new Mac. But it took a while to find the right combination of tools to make it work.

Because I am rather interested in running older PPC apps (such as FileMaker Pro v6) under Mountain Lion, successfully installing a Snow Leopard VM is key.  In my recent experience, Parallels did that fairly easily with this (linked) method. However I found that method resulted in an unstable 10.6 installation for me. The VM would quit unexpectedly and then complain on boot  that it was the wrong OS. A better way (even if more expensive) is to install a legit copy of Leopard Server 10.5 or 10.6. I have a legit copy of 10.5 and that seems to be working pretty well so far. Better than anything else I’ve tried. Once I got that working, I thought I might as well try out Parallels with some other VMs, but importing VMs was poorly documented, thus this article. If this didn’t work, my next solution attempt would be to remote control an older Mac running OSX 10.4.x , 10.5.x, or 10.6.x and run the old PPC apps on that. Sort of the same thing, but requires more hardware. My favorite remote control is Timbuktu Pro for Mac, but that’s a whole ‘nother story.

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