Install Virtualbox on an USB stick to run it on Windows host

DocWilliam · Post by **DocWilliam** » 5. Jun 2007, 17:44

Hello,
I am looking for a virtual machine that may be installed on an USB stick as a portable application and that can be run afterwards on another Windows 2000/XP host PC without prior installation.
I found out that it is possible with QEMU manager (frontend to qemu) and the first experience is quite promising. But I have found some remarks in the Web that there may be serious problems if one is using the QEMU accelerator (kqemu).
Next I was reading about moka5. Their website states that it works only for Windows XP. Other sites claim that moka5 is build upon VMware player.
VMware player itself is not a portable application.
Now I am wondering whether it is possible to use Virtualbox as a portable application or (if not) whether it is difficult to make it portable.

Post by **bodhi.zazen** » 5. Jun 2007, 17:55

I LOVE THAT SUGGESTION !!

The only observation I would give with portability is that when using a "guest host" (someone else's) windows box one does not always have admin rights.

So it would be nice if one could run a guest from USB without admin rights on windows or without root access on Linux/OSX.

Shakipu · Post by **Shakipu** » 1. Dec 2008, 18:44

A little late but... I did it, and I did a how-to but i'm french so it's in french... Good luck ! ^^
http://doc.ubuntu-fr.org/tutoriel/insta ... ur_externe

Now, I wanna know if someone find how to have VirtualBox for Linux on an external hard disk...

Post by **mpack** » 1. Dec 2008, 20:38

Unless I'm misunderstanding, you can't do what you described (in the first message of this thread) with VBox.

Yes, you can tell VBox to load VMs and VDIs from a removeable drive, but you can never "run on another host PC without prior installation" - you always need to install the VBox application on the host PC.

Shakipu · Post by **Shakipu** » 3. Dec 2008, 13:18

No you don't, I did it and i'm using it...

Post by **mpack** » 3. Dec 2008, 20:47

Shakipu wrote:No you don't, I did it and i'm using it...

Uh, my comment was addressed to the originator of this thread (DocWilliam), not to you. In fact I even indicated as much by including the phrase "in the first message of this thread") - though at that time I hadn't noticed how old this thread was that you had revived.