Virtualizing a Windows 2000 host for use in Hyper-V

Question

I'm looking for a way to successfully import a Windows 2000 host (running several legacy applications that do not work on newer editions of Windows).

I normally like to use Disk2VHD for making a quick VHD of a live server.

However it doesn't work with Windows 2000.

Solution

And the suggested "Similar Questions" answered for me, Windows 2000 does not support VSS, .Net 4.0, etc.

Hyper-V with Windows 2000 Guests

Other links that helped:

• Converting Physical Computers to Virtual Machines in VMM (P2V Conversions)
• Cloning Windows 2000 to a VirtualBox VM
• Convert any computer to a virtual machine with Linux and Clonezilla

Long story short, I ended up cloning with CloneZilla (which I have used before), and restoring the image to the virtual disk. Not the best solution but it worked for me because it was urgent to migrate this old machine off of it's hardware. I encourage viewers to add ways to do this without the political nightmare of shutting down a server machine. Or just share other software ideas.

Comments

[the-wabbit]

While Windows 2000 Server does not offer VSS, a bunch of backup products came with a replacement for this functionality. Symantec's BackupExec 9 & 10 calls it the Advanced Open File Option BackupAssist the Advanced Open Files Add-In, others have similar names. If you have a Windows 2000 server and do run backups, chances are that you can use your backup software to do a backup/restore cycle to P2V your machine.

[Michael Hampton]

This keeps coming back as an unanswered question. Is this actually resolved? If so, please accept one of the answers to mark it as resolved.