virtualbox.org

I have a question.

When I installed an early version of VB, I also installed WinXP as Virtual Machine. Can I reuse that WinXP VM in the latest VB version - without any drawbacks? Because of now, when I upgrade from say, VB v2.x up to v3.x, I have the habit of reinstalling WinXP VM because maybe old VMs are missing some features in new VB versions? So, if I use a very old WinXP VM (created with VB v1.x) should I reinstall WinXP to get a new fresh VM or can I reuse this old VM in the latest VB without any drawbacks?


Or, can I just uninstall/reinstall the latest guest add-ons to get full performance in new VB versions? And this always gives full performance, no matter how old the VM is? To get an old VM up-to-date you just need to use the latest guest add-ons?

XP is XP, regardless of which VBox version you use. Ditto for any other OS. VMs as you know can even be moved around between different VM platforms. Sticking to VBox tho: I suppose you may be obliged to upgrade the GAs if they're really old and/or there have been major bugfixes affecting you, but other than that the olds VMs should be fine. You might want to run the VDI through my CloneVDI tool, to optimize it and (in the case of really old v1.6.x VMs) bring the VDI format up to current specs.

Thanks for your answer. I maybe should try CloneVDI.

Just to double check, can someone else confirm this? Preferably a VB developer?

Waiting for a DEV might take a while.

I can tell you that the normal build of Windows does not change between VirtualBox versions. Only the Guest Additions which can be uninstalled and then install the newer version. Only reason that I can think of myself is switching Windows to SMP which never works as efficiently as a fresh install. Of course this does not take into account the use of snap shots. I don't use them for various reasons but that is the only thing that I can think of that would cause you a problem as well as what mpack mentioned which was a format change a long time ago. I too used his CloneVDI tool and have not had a single problem.

"...Only reason that I can think of myself is switching Windows to SMB which never works as efficiently as a fresh install...."

What is "SMB"? I didnt understand this sentence. So, if I use an old VirtualBox VM, it should be fine in newest VirtualBox? There is no need to reinstall the VM from scratch, unless I do this "SMB" thing. What is it?

Sorry that was a typo (I have corrected). It is SMP. Symmetric multiprocessing

I have a VM that is from before 3.0 and has seen all the upgrades along the way. The Guest Additions were updated accordingly, if I remembered to update them when I ran it on a newer version. I just had a Windows 2003 Guest that still had the 3.1.0 GA installed. Upgraded them to 4.1.0 GA and the VM was still fine. Speedy as it was when I first installed it. My XP VMs (I have several) all behave fine. Some have slowed down a bit, but that's not because of VB, but more due to the updates it got and software installed on it. Same what you would get on a native system, so nothing shocking.