I have completed dozens of P2V migrations for various clients and have to walk down the same path each time. One of these days I will get around to scripting some of this stuff, but wanted to at least highlight the steps I take here. I do all of this work on the new VM, despite that it could be done on the physical server before doing the migration. If you do that though, you lose the ability to roll back to the physical server as a failback. I would rather do the work on the VM knowing I can always simply power up the physical box. Steps below:

Microsoft has a great KB article that lists a number of best practices to consider when virtualizing domain controllers. Most notable of these below:

1. Disable Write Cache on volumes hosting ESE based databases. This was also tossed around on the VMware forums a while back and there doesn't appear to be a conclusive answer how to deal with this suggestion.

If running Workstation 5.5 or 6.0, when client creates a VM using the New Virtual Machine Wizard, there is a list of Operating Systems on the Guest Operating System page; choose one of the 64bit OS editions from this list (Note: Do not try to install a 64bit OS on a VM that was created using a 32bit OS from this menu). Then the guest install is as usual. Also be sure to note the restrictions below for hardware and supported Guest OSes. If running a version earlier than 5.5, client needs to upgrade if they need 64 bit support.

I will update this entry soon, but until then our friend Chris over at getyournerdon.com has an excellent video walk through of how to set the correct permission, create the database, and complete the install.