virtualbox.org

Greetings:

I have virtualbox 2.0.0 installed n my win xp. And A Ubuntu as my guest. My question is how to upgrade to virtualbox 2.0.6. Do I just install it and overwrite the existing virtualbox 2. Does it affect my ubuntu?

What is the proper way of upgrading the virtualbox. What should I consider before doing it?

thnx

In my experience the only thing is that you should make sure that you don't have any saved machines, also I feel better if I don't have any snapshots so either ditch them or merge them. An upgrade shouldn't otherwise touch your virtual machines.

And after the upgrade update guest additions in all machines.

For the upgrade, see the Forum FAQ.

I upgrade for each version change. Over time I've narrowed to this procedure. Kill or merge all snaphots and unregister the disks short of delete. Uninstall completely. Obviously your vdi will still be around to register again. Do everything from complete scratch. Doing the network tap creation isn't a big deal but is the most labor intensive, especially if you have to reconfigure the router. Be methodical. And to be safe make sure your Machines folder is empty and VirtualBox.xml file gone -- if you want prior to reinstallation. A bit redundant but I'm that way.

dewittdale wrote:I upgrade for each version change. Over time I've narrowed to this procedure. Kill or merge all snaphots and unregister the disks short of delete. Uninstall completely. Obviously your vdi will still be around to register again. Do everything from complete scratch. Doing the network tap creation isn't a big deal but is the most labor intensive, especially if you have to reconfigure the router. Be methodical. And to be safe make sure your Machines folder is empty and VirtualBox.xml file gone -- if you want prior to reinstallation. A bit redundant but I'm that way.

That's a bit rigorous. You can also get some issues with activation and interface names, because unless you record the previous MAC address, a new one will be generated.
Since 1.6.0, saved states and snapshots will be usable in the new version without any issue.
It can also cause problems for Windows Guests if you forgot the PIIX setting for the IDE controller emulation.

That's a bit rigorous.

I'm an experimenter out of dumbness so I'll try it your way next time. But one thing's for certain unharness the drive by using the Delete tab and then unregister. This was the less painful way which I found out by experimentation. And if I'm not mistaken doesn't that have to be done without snapshots. (?) And I'll agree killing the VirtuBox.xml isn't necessary since it's written to after all the gui changes in unregistering.