I'm trying to import Hyper-V 2008 (without R2) VM to Hyper-V 2012 R2 host.

This error occured:

"Hyper-V encountered an error during the import operation.

'VM' failed to realize.

Failed to upgrade the VM version of the virtual machine 'VM'.

The VM version is not supported"

Create new VM with existing virtual disk.

• Marked as answer by Elton_JiMicrosoft contingent staff, Moderator Thursday, February 06, 2014 5:25 AM

Hi Denis,

yes, I know that I can use this workaround...

But do you have any idea why regular import does not work?

Hi Simonaa,

"VM's that are exported from Windows Server 2008 or 2008 R2 utilized the version 1 WMI namespace which resulted in an .exp file to represent the exported virtual machine. In Windows Server 2012 we introduced a new WMI namespace (version 2 or root\virtualization\v2) which implemented a much better import/export model allowing you to effectively just copy the virtual machine folder (with the VMs XML configuration file inside it) as well as the VMs VHDs and then import that directly. For Windows Server 2012 we maintained the version 1 WMI namespace which allowed for importing of Windows Server 2008/R2 VMs on 2012.

In Windows Server 2012 R2 we have removed the old version 1 namespace which means we cant import virtual machines that where exported from Windows Server 2008/R2."

For details please refer to following link:

 http://blogs.technet.com/b/rmilne/archive/2013/10/22/windows-hyper-v-2012-amp-8-1-hyper-v-did-not-find-virtual-machine-to-import.aspx

 

Hope this helps

Best Regards

Elton Ji

Hi Elton,

I already found this blog...

I also found in that blog that import should work...

"If you exported from Windows Server 2008 or 2008 R2, and the original host is still available with the VMs then probably the easiest option will be to get the VMs off that machine in a format that is easily importable to Hyper-V 2012 R2.

On the original Hyper-V server, power down the VMs.  Once they have shut down, then stop the Hyper-V Virtual Machine Management Service (VMMS).  This will unlock the VMs files.  Simply copy over the VM folders to the Windows Server 2012 R2 server and they can be imported.  Remember this was one of the features added to Windows Server 2012 - we do not have to specifically export a VM before it can be imported.  Funnily enough this functionality was added in the WMI v2 namespace for Hyper-V."

The problem is that importing not working as described in upper paragraph... I'm getting this error:

"Hyper-V encountered an error during the import operation.

'VM' failed to realize.

Failed to upgrade the VM version of the virtual machine 'VM'.

The VM version is not supported"

Regards, Simona

Hi Simonaa,

"But do you have any idea why regular import does not work? "

My understanding of "regular import" is "export" then "import" VM .

As for this method I haven't tried before :

"On the original Hyper-V server, power down the VMs.  Once they have shut down, then stop the Hyper-V Virtual Machine Management Service (VMMS).  This will unlock the VMs files.  Simply copy over the VM folders to the Windows Server 2012 R2 server and they can be imported '

You encountered the error message when you import the VM using above method ?

Best Regards

Elton Ji

Hi Elton,

Yes, I encountered the error message with using that method...

Best regards

Hi Simonaa,

How is everything going ?

At present please use the workaround   posted by Denis .

I will test that if the VM folder of server2008 is supported to be imported into server 2012/r2 .

Best Regards

Elton Ji

Hi Elton,

Normally, workaround is working...

Please inform me about test results...

Regards, Simon

Hi Simonaa,

My test VM resides on server 2008 sp2 enterprise edition hyper-v host , I followed the above method you mentioned , the vm can be imported into server 2012 ,but 2012R2 threw en error hyper-v 1.0 vm can not be imported.

Hope this helps

Best Regads

Elton Ji

Why on earth did you (Microsoft) remove the import feature AND the ability to simply copy VM's from Windows 2008 server?  You are killing me here, taking a task that should be straight forward and simple and making me manually recreate 25 VM's that you could have simply imported one version back.  Seriously, there are a lot of engineers at MS - someone could have maintained the import feature?  Sorry, I'm ranting, I'll stop now...  If there were specs I'd write a conversion routine myself to make the XML machine definition importable.  My machines are not complex.  Most have one NIC, one VHD...  But all I can find out there is "you can't do that".  Ugh.

Same problem here, but... SOLVED!!!

I was able to import a Windows 2008 R2 Hyper-V VM to Windows 2012 R2 Hyper-V, but not able to import a Windows 2008 Hyper-V VM: "The VM version is not supported"

Here's the solution that worked for me:

Copy the whole VM folder to the destination

Open the xml config file with a serious editor ( I use Notepad ++, but you could use XML notepad)

Locate the <properties> section

At the end of the section add this line: <version type="integer">512</version>

Be sure to add the line in the right position, before </properties>

Done, now your VM will be recognized as It was created on an Hyper-V 2008 R2!

I'll hope this helps someone.

Marco

Thx

works like a charm, just moved some old 2008 VM's to 2012 R2 without problems using this way

works for me too. thank you

Because the morons at M$ have absolutely no idea how to write any sort of virtualisation.

You think you've got problems importing from "Server 2008" into "Server 2012"?  Don't worry, "Hyper-V" is just so badly broken that it can't even import VMs that were *created* on "Server 2012" - fails 3 times with an error about not being able to locate the virtual switch (which exists) then just bombs out with "<VM name> failed to realize".

Basically, everything I've learned about Hyper-V tells me simply do not use it - it was designed by morons and implemented by cretins.  It is unusable.