virtualbox.org

As a complete "newbie", I have read all the posts that appear relevant as well as the various User Guides and "How-To's" and I'm still confused! I understand that each VM must have an OS installed in it but is there any way to "fool" it? Eg, back up my existing 3 Windows OS's using Norton Ghost or something and then recover to the VM after installing a "bare-bones" system in each (from the original DVD)? From that point would ending each session by saving the machine state avoid the problem in future?
Which would be my best Host - Vista 32, Vista 64, XP 32 or Linux (Fedora 10, x86-64)? (I'm also new to Linux, so I'm having a few problems getting it to work the way I want). I have been playing with dual-boot Fedora/Windows (then Multi-boot XP/Vista 32/Vista 64) and that seem to work OK.

Once installed does the Virtual Machine get auto-updated by Windows or Linux if it is left running?

Any advice or even directions to a specific relevant post would be most appreciated

In the FAQ's there are migration links and some howto's, this process is called P2V.
Once you have a VM, it will function like a real machine, though with the limits a VM poses, it will update itself if set.
The Host choice depends on what you want to do with the Host and its Guests, xp64 as standalone Host has my preference, with vista as interacting Host.

Thnx for reply.
I think I have old copy of XP 64-bit still lying around so maybe I'll try re-installing that as host - then again the 2+ years of Microsoft patches are probably going to take months to install!

Mine took 45 minutes patches and all, do make sure you have all the motherboard/chipset drivers or it will crash on you.

I now have Fedora x86_64 running as a guest on a Windows XP 32-bit host. Didn't have to do anything clever - it installed easily and seems to br running ok. (so far!)