Hi,

MS VMM 2008 can perform an offline P2V conversion on a domain controller and recommended too.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc764232.aspx

However, in a scenerio where we are converting some physical DCs to Virtual platform, will P2V be recommended or instead building a new and clean VM DC via dcpromo is recommended.

Regards

-Manish

Our domain controllers had several other roles, so I didn't really want to build a new virtual machine.  I couldn't get the offline P2V to work, so what I did was demote the domain controller, Online P2V and then promote the machine again once P2V was complete and I had cleaned up the machine. It appears to have worked fine.

 

Alex

Hi Manish,

 

Thanks for posting your question here.  Either method will work just fine.  With the offline P2V option in VMM, you can convert existing physical domain controllers to virtual machines.  Keep in mind that when performing an offline conversion you’ll need to have the drivers for the network adapter in the physical computer for W2K8 and copied into the Driver Import folder on the VMM server prior to the conversion.  This is true for all offline conversions.  But this functionality works great.

 

Conversely, building a new VM and then promoting it to a domain controller will also work.  Its just a bit more work involved to get it up and running and replicating successfully with the existing domain controllers.

 

I hope this helps.  Please let me know if you have any more questions about this process.

 

 

Thanks,

Mike Briggs [MSFT]

http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm

http://blogs.technet.com/mbriggs

 

** This information provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights **

 

 

• Marked as answer by Mike Briggs [MSFT]Microsoft employee, Moderator Friday, May 21, 2010 2:09 PM

Hi Manish,

 

Thanks for posting your question here.  Either method will work just fine.  With the offline P2V option in VMM, you can convert existing physical domain controllers to virtual machines.  Keep in mind that when performing an offline conversion you’ll need to have the drivers for the network adapter in the physical computer for W2K8 and copied into the Driver Import folder on the VMM server prior to the conversion.  This is true for all offline conversions.  But this functionality works great.

 

Conversely, building a new VM and then promoting it to a domain controller will also work.  Its just a bit more work involved to get it up and running and replicating successfully with the existing domain controllers.

 

I hope this helps.  Please let me know if you have any more questions about this process.

 

 

Thanks,

Mike Briggs [MSFT]

http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm

http://blogs.technet.com/mbriggs

 

** This information provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights **

 

 

• Marked as answer by Mike Briggs [MSFT]Microsoft employee, Moderator Friday, May 21, 2010 2:09 PM

Thanks guys. Appriciate your help.

Use this video to fix: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reb4eMcpl20