I get some questions now and then about free tools to use for converting virtual machine files from one format to another. One of my old time favorite tools (VMDK to VHD Converter)  for converting virtual machines files from VMware to Microsoft’s VHD is getting old and can give you some performance issues & problems on x64 bit operating systems. It also doesn’t support other file format conversions. If you need to try another tool you can give StarWind Software V2V Image converter a try.

It works pretty well on all major Windows operating systems up to & including windows 7 / Windows 2008 R2 x64 bit. It supports conversions between VMDK, VHD files and  IMG files. And it doesn’t alter the source files in any way. However to prevent the software from crashing I need to run it as an administrator. I consider this to be a drawback. Make sure you have a good machine with a modern processor & fast (extra) disk and adequate space to get optimal speed  Really, replace that P4, go on!

Drawbacks are that you cannot choose the location where the converted file is saved. So you can’t get optimal speed by using two physical disks, one for reading and one for writing. Also this means that for large virtual disk files you’ll need loads of free space. It requires registration for download which you might not like that (you can grab it here: StarWind V2V Image Converter). On the whole it’s a pretty fast tool and does the job well and a nice instrument in my toolkit.