I suppose it is a bit ironic that a blog born out of a p2v project, called p2vpro.com does not have much mention of p2v’s. In my defense, that is understandable given that p2ving is something that larger organisations are engaged in, and not your typical home lab user.

However, yesterday I downloaded vmware converter and virtualised my notebook running windows XP. Why? I had bought some software which needed a DVD drive and my notebook doesn’t have one. Not a problem, I thought, I can use my iMac to rip the dvd and make an iso out of it. Then I use Microsoft’s virtual cd control panel (which I found explained at http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/620/xp_small_free_way_to_use_and_mount_images_iso_files_without_burning_them/. This worked fine to install the software but it still didn’t run, it seems to insist on a physical CD drive presence and a different volume name.

So, as a last ditch effort, instead of using a virtual CD tool, I virtualised the whole machine. The virtualisation worked very well and it goes an awful lot faster as a VM than a 2 year old notebook. Of course, Windows complains verbosely about the hardware changing and having to re-activate within three days.

Unfortunately, the software still doesn’t work but I think that is due to some kind of copy protection built into the program rather than the VM. Now it complains that the wrong DVD is mounted.

I have a couple of even older Windows laptops lying around the house and they are definitely candidates for virtualisation.