P2V from Se7en to VirtualBox

Here’s how you can virtualize you physical workstation running Windows 7 into a VirtualBox virtual machine.

Prerequisites

A physical workstation running Microsoft Windows 7.

The (free) VMware vCenter Converter utility.

An external storage to put your VM’s image on.
Either a network share or an external storage (USB disk, USB thumb…).

VirtualBox running on your host machine. I used VirtualBox 3.2.6 on Mac OS X 10.6.4.

On your physical workstation:

Log-in as your standard user;
Download and install VMware Converter (and reboot ?);
Don’t start the utility right now. Unless you wan’t to see the error message VMware vCenter Converter Server is installed but not running.;
Start the Services MMC (services.msc);
Find the VMware vCenter Converter Server service;
Edit its properties and choose the Log On tab;
Select This account option and fill in the name of an Administrator user;
Apply changes and start the VMware Converter utility;
Follow the wizard to create a virtual image of your local workstation to your external storage:
- Source type: Powered-on machine
- Powered-on machine: This local machine
- Select destination type: VMware Workstation or other VMware virtual machine
- Select VMware product: VMware Workstation 6.5.x

Now you have a bunch of files on your external storage. Those are the VM’s disk.

On your VirtualBox host machine:

Create a new “Windows 7” VM;
Attach the .vmdk file you generated;
Enable IO Apic from the VM’s properties;
Start the VM and log-in;
In the Windows’ device manager, locate the ACPI Uniprocessor PC and update the driver to use Advanced Configutation and Power Interface (ACPI) PC instead;
Shutdown the VM, disable the IO Apic option and reboot.

Tada !!!

Now, install the VirtualBox guest tools.

You can also export the VM with VirtualBox to get single disk image.