How to backup and restore windows VMs on windows host

[descott12]

Hello,
I have an XP vm and and Win 7 VM on a win 10 host. Virtual Box 6.1.34

The Win 7 VM is stored in c:\virtual hard disks\Win7.hdd

The Win XP VM is stored in c:\users\des\virtual box VMs\WinXP\WinXP Clone.hdd
This folder also has \Logs, \Snapshots, a .vbox file and a .vbox-prev file.

There is also a similar folder for the Win7 VM but the win 7 hdd file is stored in a different place for some reason.
So why the different locations and what does one need to restore or move a VM to a different machine?


Thanks

[BillG]

To backup a vm, copy the entire folder for the vm to another location.

To move a vm to a different machine, copy the entire folder to the new host, then register it in its new location.

By default the files comprising a vm are stored in a folder called VirtualBox VMs in your user folder. If they are somewhere else, they were put there be the person who created them.

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