Backup Exec 2012 - P2V on ESXI Free Edition

Greetings,

I am wondering if I can use the P2V feature in Backup Exec 2012 to the free edition of ESXI 5.0. I have tried to run the job to accomplish this but it errors out with the message below. 

"Convert Server to Virtual 00001 -- The job failed with the following error: Failed to authenticate with the target server required for creating a standby copy.  Verify that you are using the correct credentials to access the target server."

I did find a few items while Google searching that the free edition needs to licensed for VDDK APIs. Can anyone verify this?

Thanks,

R.