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Cannot import a server 2008 R2 Virtual Machine on a server 2012 R2 Hyper-V host

If you have created an export of a virtual machine on a windows 2008 R2 server and try to import the export on a windows server 2012 R2 Hyper-V host, you get the following error:

 

“Hyper-V did not find virtual machines to import from location”

The Problem: After some searches I found this article “Windows Hyper-V 2012 & 8.1 Hyper-V Did Not Find Virtual Machine to Import” which describes the problem I ran into.

The problem is “WMI root\virtualization namespace v1 (used in Hyper-V)” has been removed in Windows Server 2012 R2, it was deprecated in Windows Server 2012 but still exist so you could import the export in Server 2012, but it is removed in Server 2012 R2. Since Server 2012 they introduced WMI namespace (version 2 or root\virtualization\v2.

Solution: There are a couple of workarounds possible,

  • First you can just copy the VHD files and just built a new Virtual machine with the existing VHD files.
  • Second if you have a windows Server 2012 server you can import the machine on this server and make an export and then copy that export to the 2012 R2 server.
  • Last option if the existing Virtual Machine is still on the windows 2008 R2 server, stop the Virtual Machine, copy the complete directory with VHD and configuration to the 2012 R2 server and on then choose import on the 2012 R2 and point to the copied folder.