I am just preparing our Windows 2003 Small Business Server to be upgraded to Small Business Server 2008. Therefor I tried to install the VMware converter tools to convert the old server to a virtual machine before upgrading it.

My problem was that the installer always complained about not being able to start the converter service with the following message:

VMware vCenter Converter Standalone — Error 1920
Service VMware vCenter Converter Server (vmware-converter-server) failed to start. Verify that you have sufficient privileges to start system services.`

After doing some web research with finding a lot of useless tips I found this blog post showing up a very easy solution: I had to add a group called “Domain Admins” because it did not exist on the German version of our Small Business Server. This is why I always try to install the original English version of operating systems when available and our new Small Business Server 2008 will be in English.