Prerequisites
Ensure that the source Amazon EC2 Windows instance has a temporary volume that is large enough to accommodate the image of the Amazon EC2 Windows instance. This temporary drive must be excluded from the conversion.
 
Licensing aspects
Remember that all Amazon windows instances are licensed under a SPLA agreement with Amazon. Your instance will become deactivated after a small period of time and you will need to use your own license key.
In cases where the instance is Windows Datacenter edition, weigh up the cost implications of continuing to use DC edition over Standard Edition, or even Web Edition of Windows Server.
 
Procedure
  • Install vCenter Converter Standalone on the Amazon EC2 Windows instance that you want to convert.
  • Create a conversion task to import the source Amazon EC2 Windows instance as a Workstation 6.5 destination:
  • Start vCenter Converter Standalone on the Amazon EC2 Windows instance.
  • Click Convert a Machine in the application menu to start the Conversion wizard.
  • On the Specify Source page, select Powered-on machine from the Select source type menu and click This local machine.
  • Click Next to proceed to the Specify Destination page.
  • On the Specify Destination page, select VMware Workstation or other VMware virtual machine from the drop-down menu and select VMware Workstation 6.5 from the VMware product list.
  • Type a name for the destination virtual machine and browse to the temporary volume that will contain the destination virtual machine.
  • Click Next to proceed to the View/Edit Options page.
  • On the View/Edit Options page, select Data to Copy in the list of options.
  • Deselect the check box in front of the temporary volume to exclude it from the conversion task.
  • Click Next to proceed to the View Summary page.
  • Check the summary of the conversion task and click Finish to submit it to the tasks list.
 
 .vmx and a *.vmdk file are created during the conversion.
Using FTP to transfer the files
  • Download Filezilla Portable and install to a directory on the temporary volume. This saves having to install and later remove filezilla from the server. Additionally it is stored on the shared volume when it is connected to additional AWS instances.
  • On the temporary volume of the Amazon EC2 Windows instance, locate the VMware Workstation virtual machine files that were created during the conversion (the *.vmx and the *.vmdk file). 
  • On a temporary helper server on your ESX cluster, enable Filezilla server and attach the server to a public facing network and have an adaptor on the private ESX network.
  • Transfer the VMware Workstation virtual machine files to this helper server
 
Converting the files to ESX
  •  Start vCenter Converter Standalone and create a conversion task to import the Workstation image into the vSphere:
  • On the Specify Source page, select VMware Workstation or other VMware virtual machine from the Select source type drop-down menu.
  • Click Browse to locate the *.vmx file you downloaded from the Amazon S3 server and click OK to return to the Specify Source page .
  • Click Next to proceed to the Specify Destination page.
  • On the Specify Destination page, select VMware Infrastructure virtual machine from the drop-down menu and enter the required information.
  • Click Next to proceed to the Hosts and Clusters page.
  • On the Host and Cluster page, specify the resources for the converted virtual machine and click Next to proceed to the View/Edit Options page.
  • On the Options page, select Advanced in the list of options.
  • In the Advanced conversion options pane, select Configure guest preferences for the virtual machine and click Next.
  • On the Customizations page, select Windows License and enter the Microsoft Volume License information for the Windows operating system. This is due to the fact that the copied VM is using Amazons SPLA keys
  • Click Next to proceed to the View Summary page.
  • Check the summary of the conversion task and click Finish to submit it to the tasks list.
 
Issues after import
Most of amazons windows instances use rhel drivers.
These must be removed otherwise the machine will BSOD on startup
To remove these do the following
  • Boot into windows recovery
  • Log into recovery with Administrator details
  • Start a command prompt
  • At the prompt, type in the following
C:  *press enter*
         cd Windows\System32\drivers       *press enter*
del rhel*              *press enter*
 
  • Reboot VM
  • Log into windows and test system stable and operational
Source: http://vmwarenet.blogspot.com/2012/04/migrating-from-amazon-aws-towards.html
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