Personally, I would create a full backup image of the device and restore the entire image onto a VM, then run VMware Converter and do a "Reconfigure" on that VM.
Also, because it's an OEM version of Windows, you will need to upgrade to a non OEM version of Windows.
You didn't mention what edition Win8 is, if it's Home, then you can upgrade to Win 8 Pro, if it's Pro, you can upgrade to Win8 Ent.
Windows OEM stuff is bound to the hardware in your device. It looks for specific hardware and if it's fired up on different hardware, it will not activate after your migration. It might come up but the activation Nagware will keep coming up.
I've done quite a few of these types of migrations but never with Win8.
Good Luck!!!