if it helps anyone else, i found a workaround for my particular issue.  on the source machine, open window task manager and then run through the manual installation of the converter agent, you'll notice at different stages of the installation you get additional instances of msiexec.exe showing up, at the end of the installation when the 29190 error pops up you should have a corresponding instance of msiexec, just end that msiexec in task manager and click ok on the error, the installation then continues rather than rolls back.  i was able to p2v this machine then.

https://communities.vmware.com/message/2742424

error  - Could not generate secure sockets layer (SSL) key