Hello.
I recommend you to make a full backup of the VM with Veeam backup &Replication is free in its Community edition (up 10 workloads).
You can install it even on a PC with 8GB ram or more and enough disk space (even with external USB disks).
https://www.veeam.com/virtual-machine-backup-solution-free.html
On Yotube you can find examples of how to install, configure, backup and restore easily and from VMware.
https://www.youtube.com/c/veeam
If you are using a vmware vsphere free, then you will have to backup and restore as a physical server. You should verify that the guest operating system is supported by Veeam.