For now, I want the ability to boot into either Windows Server 2008 R2, or into ESXi.
That is how I am starting out, until I get everything converted over to ESXi, after which time I will default to ESXi.
In order to do this, I've had to install the ESXi software onto the internal SD card to boot from, and use some new, clean drives to hold the Datastore files.
I have my 'Windows' drives pulled out of the server when I boot into ESXi, so that I don't accidently delete/corrupt them.
These 'Windows' drives hold the original working versions of the VMware Workstation virtual machines.
So I don't 'break' the images, I've copied them onto a workstation drive (not part of the ESXi network), and am trying to convert the images outside of ESXi.
I am now thinking that I need to perform my conversion while I'm booted in ESXi.
Do I have to launch the VMware vSphere Client from my Windows client desktop, and then have the conversion running on the client while I'm running ESXi on the server?
Then the Converter, which is running on the client (outside of the ESXi network) will be able to access the source VM and the destination ESXi server.
This is confusing to an ESXi 'newb' like me.
Perhaps some diagrams would help folks like me understand how this should work.
It isn't clear how the environment needs to be built out.
Maybe it's just me.