How to uninstall a VM completely?

[jonsof]

I searched around a bit but no luck.

How is it possible to completely remove an already installed virtual machine in a simple manner? Meaning deleting the .vdi disk image, the machine config XML and snapshots plus removing its entry from the main VirtualBox XML that lists all machines.

I had to do it manually up to now

I am guessing deleting the entry from the VBOX manager just deletes the corresponding one from the main XML but all the rest are left intact.Am I missing something?

Please forgive my (possible) ignorance and thanks in advance.

[Sasquatch]

VDI can be removed from the Media Manager. Remove it there so it's unregistered, then you get the question to remove the file too. All snapshots can be easily 'reverted' so they are removed from the drive without a merger. Then removing the VM from the list and you're all done.

[jonsof]

I tried removing a 2008 Server installation that had one snapshot.

1)I released the snapshot (remove was greyd out) then I removed it
2)Now I am trying to remove .vdi but no option available - .vdi physically exists

What did I do wrong?

Maybe this image helps: http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/3549/vboxvdi.png

Thanks.

[Sasquatch]

The VDI is still attached to a VM and the VM has a snapshot. That's why you can't remove the VDI. You have to select the VM on the left side of the main GUI, then on the right side you select the Snapshots tab. On that tab, select the first entry, not the 'Current State' one. Then you can remove the snapshot with the icon that has the ^ on it. That will revert the state, remove the snapshot and not merge the changes to the base VDI, saving time. After that, you can remove the VM and then you remove the VDI from the Media Manager.

[jonsof]

Thanks a lot Sasq.

BTW we are working on Hyper-V in a course I am doing and I can't say I am impressed - I am joking to them that I need to borrow lab images (.vhd) but I have to convert them in .vdi, hehe.

[Sasquatch]

And the joke of course being that VB can already read VHD files without the need to convert them.

[jonsof]

I was under the impression I had to convert the vhd to vdi with vboxmanage and retain uid etc.
Actually I need to read more the changes log between vbox versions

Now I had another issue trying to setup an exchange 2010 on a member server and the setup was looking for an (A) record on my physical router as if he was the authoritative DNS server.Gonna open a new topic.

[Sasquatch]

Don't bother, installing Exchange and any error that comes with it, like the one you described, has nothing to do with VB and thus won't be discussed here.

[jonsof]

Ok reverting to sendmail asap (joking)
I was typing as you replied so couldnt avoid the post.On the other hand I think it is maybe about Vbox and networking setup so you could give it a shot if you like.

Thanks again.