virtualbox.org

I just noticed that the "file info string" embedded in the header of a VDI file has changed from "<<< Sun xVM VirtualBox Disk Image >>>" to "<<< Sun VirtualBox Disk Image >>>". I've googled and not found anyone else discussing this. I assume that change was introduced in 3.x, but I don't know because I went straight from 2.1.4 to 3.0.4.

Is there any signficance to the change? Does it indicate any kind of format change, or is it just a de-emphasis of the "xVM" name?

I noticed it because I'm currently writing my own tool to investigate the innards of VDI files, and my tool was using this string as an extended sanity check. I notice that current VBox source doesn't seem to use it that way though (at least not that I've seen from a quick glance).

There hasn't changed anything to the format itself, only the identifier string you found has changed. If you would check the innards of a VDI created with version 1.5.x or older (1.6.0 was when Sun took over) you will see the string something like "Innotek VirtualBox". It later became Sun xVM VirtualBox due to Sun's own xVM Server software. It seems that now that Oracle has bought Sun, the xVM part was dropped.