CloneVDI tool - Discussion & Support

[michaeld_bqe]

MPACK! you the man. Thank you for the CLI. I will start writing my batch scripts starting monday morning. Very much appreciated. Happy Halloween boss. Have a great day. I actually have created a batch already just to do cloning of all my test machines so that way I have clean copies of them. Thank you so much.

-Mike D

[Sasquatch]

I just hope that the VB team can integrate it properly into VB.

I'm actually not so keen on the idea of integrating it into the VBox sources - that was never my intention. I thought they might want to bundle it as a stand alone utility, but not integrate. I use all my own code for reading VDI, VHD etc, but presumably the VB team would use their own backends for that... leaving just my front end GUI to be integrated, and that hardly seems worth the bother.

Maybe they make it both. One stand-alone download that is your tool, another part of your code to integrate in the main program and who knows what else they can make happen with it.

[MarkCranness]

Hi mpack,

Thank you so much for the fantastic tool, which I used today to clone & compress my VDI (Cleanup>Defrag>CloneVDI changed from 18GB to 12GB).

I've created shortcuts on my desktop and Start menu to CloneVDI, but noted the icon was a little jaggy around the edges.

Please consider this replacement icon file, which is mostly the same (I'm not really a great graphics designer), but has cleaner 32-bit alpha (transparency) to smooth the edges, and a larger arrow and a 16x6 icon to tidy up how it looks in the Start menu.
(If you'd prefer a version with the original smaller arrow, let me know.)

Here it is in use, 'Clone VDI' with a space, on top is the new one, and 'CloneVDI' no space on the bottom is the existing one:

New icon in use

New icon in use.png (55.63 KiB) Viewed 9555 times

[mpack]

Why thank you! I'll have a look at them of course. I'd never even considered how it looks like in the start menu since I always launch it from a desktop shortcut.

What did you use as an icon editor btw?

[MarkCranness]

I started using paint.net with Evan Old's Icon/Cursor Paint.NET Plug-in, but that didn't seem to handle transparency well (or at all).

A paint.net forum recommended using paint.net to design the icon (as a png file) and IcoFX to turn it into an ico file.
For tweaking your icon, I entirely used IcoFX.
About the only 'problem' I've seen is that Windows Explorer will use one of the smaller sub-icons when it displays a thumbnail for ico file itself, rather than one of the bigger sub-icons (only affects thumbnails in an Explorer window, AFAIK, programs using the icon are likely OK).

Attached is an intermediate 'work' ico used as I was building the main ico.

[michaeld_bqe]

mpack,

I tried using your utility to convert my VMDK to VDI and unfortunately it rendered both files useless. The VDI booted to the XP logon screen then froze and the vmware (vmdk) just would not run due to something like lacking of certain file although it worked before the conversion. I was hoping you can maybe tell me some propper steps I must just be on crack. How ever I Was able to boot the vdi with Mini XP and access all my files and copy them to another machine So Just trashed the vdi and VMDK, but it would be nice to know how to propperly due it at a later point in time. Also note I have not checked this forum post to see if you have published it once before. However if you have just call me a dumb **** and point me to the page of the post Thanks again mpack for such a great util. Good Work on the icon by the way Mark Cranness. Anyone who is part of this community should help out mpack he has done something that

Edit: sun

Oracle :p has lacked to do yet

Mode edit: Language please.

[mpack]

I tried using your utility to convert my VMDK to VDI and unfortunately it rendered both files useless.

Not possible. The VMDK is not modified by me, in fact with v1.41 the source file is opened in read-only mode, hence I couldn't modify the source file even by accident.

Hence if the VMDK was not working post cloning then it was also not working pre-cloning: which of course probably means that the clone also will not work.

[michaeld_bqe]

mpack,

But it did work prior to cloning. But either way. I will test another vmdk just to see if it works alright. hope all is well and thank you very much for your hard work.

-Mike D

[Etepetete]

In case you are considering localizing it ...

Um... actually that's another thing I've been lazy about....

I'm glad to hear that ! At the moment, I'm busy with another project and won't be able to get to it until ca. 2 weeks.

All of the dialog boxes etc are in a resource file hence easily localized, but a lot of error messages and so forth are embedded in the C sources...

Just send me the messages, warnings, control names etc. in any format that is comfortable for you, i.e. xml, csv, etc. As far as I'm concerned, it could even be a plain text file with each "Text" element listed one per line. I already have your release notes so I'd have a document to start with.

I've read on more than one occasion, that you only wanted to remove bugs and leave implementation of new features as a maybe. So I didn't consider mentioning localization a good idea until now. It seems as if your CloneVDI tool project has got its fangs in you so deep that it would be impossible for you to refuse. And it gives me the possibility to say thank you via active support.

Why not grab the latest release, create screenshots and translate them and add the translation to the screenshot itself (either replace the text or point to it)...

I love simple solutions but your suggestion, as conveniently simple as it is, would mean double work, I write to a screen shot and mpack then reads from screen shot and writes to other document. This is also error prone. An ideal solution would be for me to supply mpack with a translation in a form he can use immediately without having to touch it at all. And as mpack already stated (what few people do not realize, when unfamiliar with programming) there's plenty of textual content hidden within the code, that one does not see at all under normal circumstances.

[mpack]

But it did work prior to cloning.

I'm sure you believe that, but something else is going on since I've already mentioned the basic fact: it simply is not possible for me to modify a source file opened in read-only mode. Even if there was a bug that simply couldn't happen. If you don't believe me, then you could manually mark the source file as read-only before cloning it. That way you'd have to give me credit for defeating the host OS in order to modify the source.

[michaeld_bqe]

mpack,

Please do not take my last comment as a attack against your tool. By no means was it meant in that way at all. I thank you very much for your hardwork and have posted it in 2 other private forums (friends tech sites) they are loving it and now have used the batch scripts I have wrote this morning as a tool.

-Mike D

[Penguin64]

mpack,

I have the same issue. This is my first time using your tool, so maybe I'm missing a step.

I had 2 openSuSe VDI images that were working just fine. I tried to clone one using your tool and both the cloned copy and the original will not boot. I assumed I had made a mistake so I read the instructions carefully again and tried it with my other openSuSe image and got the same result: 2 dead images.

My host is Windows XP and I'm running Virtualbox 3.0.10 and version 1.40 of your tool.

I hope this information helps to find a resolution.

- Penguin64

[Perryg]

@Penguin64,

What is the version number of your 3.0.10?

[michaeld_bqe]

Penguin,

also I didn't have any problem cloning VDIs. Only cloning my VMDK (VMware image) Due note That you should grab his v1.41, as he stated he opens the file in read only would assume he would do the same for the VDI file.

-Mike D

[mpack]

I hope this information helps to find a resolution

Not really. It's hard to get around the fact that what you are describing should be impossible, furthermore you are talking about v1.40 which had over 600 downloads with no such bug reported; and you are talking about a bug in the VDI->VDI cloning feature, which is what most of those people must be using, making your claim even less likely.

However...

I will need precise details of exactly what filenames you enter and options you set in CloneVDI, and I would also like some kind of solid evidence for a bug, such as "before" and "after" MD5 checksum on the source file, showing it to have been changed by cloning. In short I need a procedure I can reproduce. I'd prefer you use v1.41 in any tests, and in fact with that version it would be sufficient to show that the source file last modification date stamp changed after cloning.