Here's what I wound up doing (submitting answer to my own question to help the greater good, I hope):
Use diskpart.exe with the following commands in a text file:
create vdisk file=E:\Temp\RawDisk\2003R2_amd64\2003_R2_amd64.vhd maximum=10000 type=expandable
select vdisk file=E:\Temp\RawDisk\2003R2_amd64\2003_R2_amd64.vhd
attach vdisk
create partition primary
assign letter=v
format fs=ntfs quick label=vhd
active
exit
Then, I used the /apply option off of imagex.exe to apply the WIM file to this logical volume:
imagex.exe /apply 2003_R2_amd64.WIM 1 V:\
Then, used either bootsect.exe (server 2003) or bcdboot.exe (server 2008 and 2008 R2). This example is for 2003:
"C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools\amd64\bootsect.exe" /NT52 V:
Then, ran diskpart.exe again with these commands in a text file:
select vdisk file=E:\Temp\RawDisk\2003R2_amd64\2003_R2_amd64.vhd
detach vdisk
Then, we ran some homegrown VHD to VMDK code and all is well. I suspect you can take this VHD and convert it using standard tools as well.
Hope this helps the greater good.
Best Answer
Sure, free solution: you can use volume shadow copy and ImageX to do this on your own.
Then grab the shadow copy's volume ID. (Usually looks like \\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopyXX.)
Then get rid of the shadow copy.
Might want to use an exact shadow ID to delete (see the /shadow=XXX switch.)
For a solid enterprise-style solution, see SmartDeploy.