How does VirtualBox work?

holygamer · 4 Aug 2015 at 04:42

Once I install the program how do I install Windows? Do I create a virtual Windows 7 and then I can copy and paste that to create another virtual Windows 7.

I'm only using this to install unstable programs that I don't want to install on my main Windows installation. So each box would just have 1 program so if anything goes wrong I can just delete the box.

AthlonXP1800 · 4 Aug 2015 at 09:47

After you installed VirtualBox.

Launch VirtualBox and click on New button to follow guide to create virtual machine, select name and OS, set memory and create virtual hard disk.

After created Windows 7 virtual machine, double click or click on Start button to start virtual machine, it will ask you for Windows 7.iso then it will run setup to install Windows 7.

bledd · 4 Aug 2015 at 10:31

Bear in mind you'll need a Windows key

AthlonXP1800 · 4 Aug 2015 at 10:54

bledd. said:
Bear in mind you'll need a Windows key

No you really don't needed it anyway because Windows 7 is only running on virtual machine!

I had Windows 7 running on virtual machine to play old games as I ignored activation popped up everytime it nagged me.

holygamer · 4 Aug 2015 at 15:41

AthlonXP1800 said:
After you installed VirtualBox.

Launch VirtualBox and click on New button to follow guide to create virtual machine, select name and OS, set memory and create virtual hard disk.

After created Windows 7 virtual machine, double click or click on Start button to start virtual machine, it will ask you for Windows 7.iso then it will run setup to install Windows 7.

OK but after it's setup can you just copy and paste a virtual machine to create another one or do I need to go through the Virtual Machine creation process again?

Danny091 · 4 Aug 2015 at 15:51

If you right click the vm in virtual box it should give you the option to copy it.

bledd · 4 Aug 2015 at 15:57

Danny091 said:
If you right click the vm in virtual box it should give you the option to copy it.

This.

AthlonXP1800 · 4 Aug 2015 at 16:28

holygamer said:
OK but after it's setup can you just copy and paste a virtual machine to create another one or do I need to go through the Virtual Machine creation process again?

Yes right click and you will see Clone on list that will create a copy of virtual machine.

DarrenM343 · 4 Aug 2015 at 20:59

AthlonXP1800 said:
Yes right click and you will see Clone on list that will create a copy of virtual machine.

Note that if you do have a key, cloning the VM will result in Windows needing to be reactivated in the new clone. If using OEM (dunno about retail) after a few times this will require a call to Microsoft. If you work off of snapshots it doesn't need reactivating when switching to a different one.

holygamer · 4 Aug 2015 at 21:09

What are snapshots?

gpuerrilla · 4 Aug 2015 at 21:31

An image of the original installation I guess.

Burnsy2023 · 4 Aug 2015 at 22:12

holygamer said:
What are snapshots?

When you take a snapshot, you save the state of the virtual hard drives and RAM. It means that you can revert any changes to the time of that snapshot.

Lee · 5 Aug 2015 at 22:03

I remember having networking issues with cloned VirtualBox VM's. It was something to do with persistent MAC addresses. It was a while ago now so can't fully remember.

JonJ678 · 5 Aug 2015 at 23:49

^Likewise. So the process may need to be clone, open settings for new machine, click the button to create a new mac address.

Copy&Paste, annoyingly, won't work. You get a copy of the virtual machine, but the "hard drive" has a universally unique identifier stamped on it and that gets copied too. Then virtualbox refuses to add the copy. So either it's clone, or copy then dig around for a badly documented and possibly unofficial command line to create a new uuid. Yuck.

AthlonXP1800 · 6 Aug 2015 at 05:07

Didn't have issue with my cloned VM when it used randomed generated MAC address, accessed to internet worked fine through NAT.