Windows 10: Moving Windows from a Mac Virtual Machine to a PC SSD

I have an iMac which is running Win10Pro (non-oem as the original product was Win8 Preview which I eventually upgraded to Win10Pro non-Insider) via Parallels Virtual Machine. I'm buying a barebone system (Intel NUC) soon and, as I need Windows for it and as I don't use the aforementioned Windows via Parallels that much, I'd like to move that Windows to the SSD of my new NUC.

Is this possible? What is the procedure? I've moved Windows between HDs before (via Macrium Reflect cloning) without hiccups but I cannot do that with a virtual machine setup (or can I). Another way to do this I guess would be to create install media (as I don't have one) and then re-install it to the SSD.

Please help!

:)

 

purchase license upgrade from windows 7 to 10 since if I upgrade now, VM will run only in Windows 10 host PC

VMWare Workstation supports the option of exporting guest VMs as a .VMDK file which you can then import in VMWare Fusion for Mac.

[Guide] How to Move/Export Virtual machine from VMware Workstation


then

Importing Windows Virtual Machines

 

Windows 10 Pro virtual machine

Hello.

First, sorry if you cannot understand everything, english is not my first language, but I'm really trying my best.

So my question is basically if I purchase Windows 10 Pro, I will get access to
unlimited without any further costs virtual machines.

And I was wondering If I could use this virtual machine as a mac because I want to develop iOS Apps with Visual Studio and Xamarin and

you have to own an Apple Mac in order to debug your code. So can I use this virtual machine in order to "create" a virtual Apple Mac operating system and start writing iOS Apps with Xamarin and Visual Studio on my PC?

Thanks for any answers.

Best regards,

Niklas

***Post moved by the moderator to the appropriate forum category.***

 

You can use macrium with a VM just the same. I went the other way and transferred from laptop to VM running on Fusion on my MBP.

Install Macrium on your VM and create an image to a (non HFS) drive or partition. Make the Macrium recovery USB and boot your NUC from it then restore the image.

Depending on how your VM is set up (BIOS or UEFI) you may find it easier to download Windows 10 install media from MS and install Windows (any version, don't bother to activate it) to the NUC first so the correct partitions are created and then just restore the C drive from the image.

If you link your existing log-on on the VM to a MS account you should be able to transfer the license. At least this worked for me.

 

Moi Tigerman, tervetuloa Kymppi Foorumille.

Imaging a virtual machine works and is as easy and done exactly the same way on virtual machine than on a physical machine. I use Macrium Reflect to capture my deployment images on a virtual machine, then deploy them to physical machines as seen for instance in this video:

[youtube]p9oMAGGFjCA[/youtube]

(From tutorial Windows 10 Image - Customize in Audit Mode with Sysprep - Windows 10 Forums)

Just remember that activation on new hardware will not be automatic. Don't forget to link the activation on your Parallels Windows 10 vm to a Microsoft account: Microsoft Account - Link to Digital License on Windows 10 PC - Windows 10 Forums

That should help you to activate Windows on new hardware if your license is retail. If not you will need a product key.




EDIT: seems that me and lx07 were posting at the same time *Smile

 

Hi there

@Kari and @lx07

Note he's got a parallels VM on a MAC so I think he needs to convert it into something WINDOWS itself can handle.

An easier method is simply to use the Vmware VM converter (Free)

Convert first your parallels VM to VMware format -

https://www.file-extensions.org/arti...re-workstation
You've now got a Windows VM

Simply do a simple V2P (Virtual to Physical) conversion :

1) run the vm on VMware player (Free)
2) uninstall any programs like VMware tools etc
3) create a free macrium stand alone image ISO -- and backup the VM
4) restore the VM on to a physical Windows HDD -- don't forget any "system reserved" partitions.

Now it's possible you might get a boot failure first time - but repair windows usually works fine.
Your newly booted Physical windows machine will probably need to get some drivers but usually that works just fine.

The new W10 installation will probably need a new activation -- believe it or not you *Could* get lucky as sometimes the digital entitlement on the servers gets a bit hosed up over VM's !!!!!

As Kari and lx07 have said - if you have a RETAIL licence you are OK - just enter that key when requested. (Do it after boot in case you have a load of problems --don't waste an activation !!!).

Of course you'll need another machine running Windows to do this. If you haven't got one - I'd look for a W7 system as you can run for 30 days before you have to activate it and perform conversion as above. I've done this a few times --works perfectly.

Cheers
jimbo

 

Hasn't there been problems with using the activation troubleshooter to move the Windows activation from a VM to a real machine? @Kari, I thought it was actually you who experimented with it and moving from VM to VM worked just fine, but moving from VM to real or real to VM did not work:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/20527

Under you recently made a significant hardware change:

 

If I have tested it, I cannot remember it. I remember posting several posts about the free upgrade, that if a 7 or 8 vm was upgraded using the free upgrade offer, that license was valid for that vm only and could not be transferred to a physical machine. But that was about the free upgrade licenses only.

Tried to find posts about me telling a retail license on vm cannot be transferred to a physical machine, found nothing.

 

Thank you all for your help. I might just try the Macrium route. However, usually with a Windows PC setup I see four partions with Macrium. When I run Macrium via Parallels Windows, I see six partions: 1 (None) NFTS Primary 2 NO NAME (None) FAT32 (LBA) Primary 3 (None) Unformatted Primary 4 (C*Smile NFTS Primary 5 (None) NFTS Primary 6 (None) NFTS Primary.

If I create an image and then restore it once I've created the correct partions to the NUC via Windows install media, will everything fall in to place and will the extra partitions screw things up?

 

The first 4 are most likely (in order) Recovery, ESP, MSR, C Drive. The last 2 are (probably) data partitions. It would help if you posted a picture of disk management though to be sure.

If you create the partitions using install media you'd only need to restore the 4th partition (the C drive) unless you have data on the extra 5th and 6th partitions that you want. The install will put everything you need in your recovery partition and the ESP.

Alternatively you can restore the whole disk image (containing all partitions) as described by @Kari as long as both your VM and NUC use the same UEFI or legacy booting.