virtualbox.org

I have two well running Virtual machines, both windows XP within Virtualbox 2.0.6
Now, I am looking forward to install VB 2.1.x once the bugs in the version 0 have
been fixed, but I don't want to loose the existing VM's.

Is it possible to keep the existing VM's ?
If yes, can you advise on what steps to take ?

Thank you

it should just upgrade automatically.

there have been a few problems though, which usually are fixed by editting the VirtualBox.xml file.

when i did it the installer offered to backup my settings and upgrade them.

you're unlikely to lose your vm's anyway, the upgrade does nothing to the VDI files, only the XML files.

of course going from 2.0.x to 2.1.x means that host internal networking gets changed, so if you've used bridging before, you'll have to change your config a little to use the new system.

shame we can't run virtualbox inside of virtualbox to try out the upgrade!

i'd definitely wait for 2.1.2 though, as the guest additions in linux guests and cloning in windows hosts is broken in 2.1.0

Vbox 2.1.0 with 2.0.6 GA seems to work better.

There are know issues with 2.1.0 NAT so if you are using NAT then you might want to switch HIF since is now just so easy to use.

2.1.0 is a great taste of things to come and I am using it on my Dev system. However, on balance I agree with sej7278, if you don't need any of the 2.1.0 features then I'd wait until 2.1.2 which hopefully should be out within a few weeks.

+1 on the ability to run multiple versions of VirtualBox on the same machine: either nested or in parallel.