Transferring from VMWare

[Ken S]

Hello everyone

I have been using VMWare Workstation and VMPlayer for many years and recently had some problems when VMTools upgraded and am looking around for a replacement.

I am now just a hobby programmer, Delphi.

How does VirtualBox compare with say VMPlayer?

Can I import my VMPlayer VMs in to VBox?

Does VBox support multi screens?

Does VBox support drag and drop files from/to Guest Host?

Can I install and test VBox without having to uninstall VMPlayer?

Thanks for any help

Ken

[mpack]

How does VirtualBox compare with say VMPlayer?

I'm not an expert in VMPlayer. From what I've seen of it, VMPlayer is more polished, but not in any aspect that interests me.

Can I import my VMPlayer VMs in to VBox?

Sure, if you first export them from VMPlayer. That means you can import them: it doesn't mean that they'll definitely run. V2V is not guaranteed to be problem free any more than P2V, but like P2V the problems are usually fixable. Windows VMs will want to be reactivated.

Does VBox support multi screens?

Of course.

Does VBox support drag and drop files from/to Guest Host?

Kinda. Frankly the support is buggy. Copying via a shared folder is much more reliable. Either way you have to install the Guest Additions (the equivalent of VMWare "Guest Tools").

Can I install and test VBox without having to uninstall VMPlayer?

Sure, just don't try to run both at the same time: they'll conflict.

And one final tip: VirtualBox and VMWare are independant developments, so don't assume that features with similar names are actually the same feature. E.g. I believe that NAT networking in VMWare is similar to what VirtualBox called "NAT network" mode.

[okiuss]

Some hypervisors work perfectly side by side. On my macOS host I have 2 VMs running 24/7.
The first one is a debian VM as router for VPN/homeoffice (VirtualBox), the other one is a HighSierra for surfing on the web (Parallels).
HyperV is a member of the "I want it all" community I did not test if Fusion does work with another hypervisor SxS.

[mpack]

Not all VM platforms use VT-x. If they don't both need it then they can run side by side. If they do need it then I don't see how two VT-x managers can run at the same time: AFAIK that would be like installing two drivers for the same device.

As to Hyper-v, to be fair it has been obvious for a long time that the solution to running two VM platforms at the same time is to move core VM management functions into the host OS. I suspect that is what NEM (Hyper-v) is eventually trying to be. Of course in the meantime it breaks VM platforms that want to use the hardware directly. I went through similar things back in the day when Windows protected mode first arrived: suddenly I couldn't access hardware like serial ports and printers directly with my uber-optimized code, instead I had to call an OS API to use the inferior Windows driver, and I resented it! Of course over time the Windows driver improved and the hardware got faster so optimization mattered less anyway. Right now Windows 10 NEM is still at the buggy inferior driver stage... all POV of course.

[BillG]

@Ken S

If you are thinking of moving existing vms from one virtualization system to another, an important thing to consider is the vm additions for whatever system you are using. For example going from VMWare, make sure that you remove the VM Tools before you do anything else. It is can be hard to get rid of the left over bits after you have converted a vm.

[Ken S]

Thanks for the replies.

[Ken S]

Spent some time on this …

downloaded and installed VBox

exported VMWare VM and imported into VBox, all ok, no errors encountered.

VM loads into VBox

uninstalled VM Tools

Observations:
takes a huge amount of time to boot VM each time
cannot get multi screens to work
cannot get any sound
mouse movement is very jerky
having to capture and uncaptured mouse is annoying
cannot install guest additions

Still playing …

Ken

[scottgus1]

takes a huge amount of time to boot VM each time

Could be a host PC setting. Start a slow guest from full power off, not save-state. Run until you see the problem happen, then shut down the guest from within the guest OS if possible. If not possible, close the Virtualbox window for the guest with the Power Off option set.

Please right-click the guest in the main Virtualbox window's guest list, choose Show Log. Save the far left tab's log, zip the log file, and post the zip file, using the forum's Upload Attachment tab.

cannot get any sound

Check the guest's settings to try to match the sound card to the old VMware setting if possible, also check that the sound card is enabled and audio output is enabled.

cannot get multi screens to work
mouse movement is very jerky
having to capture and uncaptured mouse is annoying

Guest Additions should fix these.

cannot install guest additions

What trouble are you having?

[Ken S]

Could be a host PC setting. Start a slow guest from full power off, not save-state. Run until you see the problem happen, then shut down the guest from within the guest OS if possible. If not possible, close the Virtualbox window for the guest with the Power Off option set.

Please right-click the guest in the main Virtualbox window's guest list, choose Show Log. Save the far left tab's log, zip the log file, and post the zip file, using the forum's Upload Attachment tab.

Thanks very much for the reply. Think this is what you wanted. If not, sorry, and let me know what to do

Ken

[Ken S]

Check the guest's settings to try to match the sound card to the old VMware setting if possible, also check that the sound card is enabled and audio output is enabled.

Is guest settings there are no devices found at all. In VBox, device menu and Audio goes nowhere. Will go back and check VMWare

Ken

[Ken S]

Guest Additions … What trouble are you having?

I originally downloaded VirtualBox-6.1.8-137981-Win.exe and Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-6.1.8.vbox-extpack, both on the host. After installing the first, the online stuff I could find talked about installing GA from the guest, but couldn't figure out how to get the GA file to the guest. I eventually double clicked it in the host, it started VBox and installed it! In VBox, Tools, Preferences, Extensions show Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack. In the Guest, Session Information shows no GAs.

Ken

[Ken S]

In VMWare, guest, Settings, Sound, Output, I have "Speakers (High Definition Audio)"

[BillG]

The guest additions CD image is included with VirtualBox. It you click on the Devices tab at the top of the vm window and select Insert Guest additions CD Image, the GA image is attached to optical drive of the vm. If the guest is Windows, it will probably ask you what you want to do with the newly loaded CD.

[Ken S]

Sounds working … but a bit garbled

[Ken S]

The guest additions CD image is included with VirtualBox. It you click on the Devices tab at the top of the vm window and select Insert Guest additions CD Image, the GA image is attached to optical drive of the vm. If the guest is Windows, it will probably ask you what you want to do with the newly loaded CD.

Thanks for the reply.

I get a display right at the top of the screen, "Could not insert the C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxGuestAdditions.iso disk image file into the virtual machine vm, as the machine has no optical drives. Please add a drive using the storage page of the virtual machine settings menu"

The Storage page referred to shows a floppy, IDE and SAS, plus icon is grayed out.