Portable VirtualBox ...

[robca]

Is it possible to install the Virtual Box application on a removable USB hard drive, then run it from another machine?

It would be really cool to just bowl up to any old windows machine, plug your USB HDD in, and run your environment of choice without having to touch the host machine at all.

Cheers,
-Rob

[ettienne]

Nope, you are dreaming in vivid Technicolor.

[Technologov]

I have thought about it, but it won't work, since VBox requires installation of Host kernel drivers.

For portability, use Qemu.

[nimdati]

Has anyone tried to thinstall Virtualbox. If not I will give it a go.

[Technologov]

Try it, because I don't know thininstall. (And I suppose most people don't know it either)

Wish you luck,

-Technologov

[zikarus]

Looking forward to nimdatis efforts

Until then - instead of dreaming in vivid Technicolor - you may simply try out the portable version that is already available:

http://portableapps.com/node/8191
http://z0rz.com/blog/archives/84

[Alek]

Hi to u all!
Great zOrz! I' create a VB machine in a USB HD, with WinXP Sp2 on it.
I put Portable VB and .VirtualBox folders on the USB HD and changed the lines in VBStart.bat as below:

SET VBOX_APP_LOC=\VirtualBox
SET VBOX_USER_HOME=\.VirtualBox
SET VBOX_NAME=WinXP sp2
SET AUTO_START_VM=FALSE

if you want to use languages copy the folder nls from the internal HD, where you have VB installed.

It seems to be working. I have to try it on another PC.

[Technologov]

The theory : according to my theory you can't make application portable because it requires kernel drivers.

How do you overcome this problem ?

[Alek]

It works for me. I have only some problem creating a network connection between virtual an real machine.

[Technologov]

How it works ?

In theory, this is impossible.

[Alek]

I installed PVB on a USB HD these are the lines modified in my bat file to launch PVB:

Code: Select all

SET VBOX_APP_LOC=\VirtualBox
SET VBOX_USER_HOME=\.VirtualBox
SET VBOX_NAME=WinXPsp2_base
SET AUTO_START_VM=FALSE

in root of HD I call VirtualBox the folder with the program and .Virtualbox the folder of files
The vdi image files are in the root

the link to PVB: http://z0rz.com/blog/archives/84

[db9]

Hi alek,

Portable VB works on my HD(ext./internal)& Usb pen drive just fine, but not on cd.
Do you know how to make it work from cd/dvd?

[zikarus]

Thx to z0rz the new v. 1.5.0 is available since today

http://z0rz.com/blog/archives/87

[zikarus]

A new updated and much improved version (1.6 - 32 or 64 or 32/64bit!) can be found here

http://www.german-nlite.de/index.php?sh ... 950&st=200

[akarmenia]

You need admin rights to run the AutoIt launcher that comes with this version. The guy who made it says that this is because of Sun, but I've asked them and they said you can run on limitied user too. Only the install requires admin access. I tried to thinstall it but I got the kernel driver error. I really want this to work, so if anyone has any ideas, please post.

If I get this to work I will upload it for the rest of you guys. So far everything works. The settings, registry, and virtual machines are all portable. The only problem is the kernel driver.