This weekend I took the plunge I talked about before here and here. In short, I have a new machine with 4GB of RAM that I want to use completely. Running 32–bit Windows XP does not allow me to do that. At the same time, it took me quite some time to set this machine up and some of the applications I run might not run correctly on 64–bit Vista (intended target). Thus the best way to upgrade yet not to lose any of the settings is to move the machine into a virtual one and just continue running it! Then I can move the software from virtual to the new physical setup at my own pace.

That’s exactly what I did. As soon as VMWare Workstation 6 turned RTM, I installed VMWare Converter 3.0.1 and in less than 15 minutes my complete setup went virtual. Installed 64–bit Vista in what felt like half-an-hour, installed Workstation 6 and a couple of settings later I was back in business. The only important thing to change was to fix the IP address of the VM to the previous physical machine’s IP address so that port forwarding from the router can still work unchanged.

This is the first time in my life that I had a stress-free upgrade involving wiping of the OS drive and full reinstallation. It feels great! The weblog you are reading now is actually running in a VM.

By the way, I had absolutely zero issues with 64–bit Vista. I did make sure that all the drivers I needed are available, but besides from that, no problems. 32–bit applications work like a charm, too. I had to set up a few of the particularly misbehaving apps (trying to write to “Program Files” folder etc) but it was all minor.

Added bonus – wife likes the fact that all the graphics are vector based so all the games she plays can be “enlarged” unlike in Windows XP. This is the first time she accepted the upgrade without complaints.

Finally, new VMWare Workstation 6 rocks, as expected. I am writing a review of it for the Serbian magazine “PC” which is a great way to familiarize myself with the new features. Upgrade price is still a bit high though, about 50% of the full price.