How do avoid re-activation?

[Bullitt]

Hi guys1

I just moved some VMs to another hard drive - and once re-imported back into virtualbox - they insist on being activated.

This is very annoying. I do not understand why this happens.

Is there a way to avoid it???

[scottgus1]

I have moved a Windows SBS2003 VM to three different PC's without triggering re-activation, and a XP Home VM to another PC without re-activating. What I did was just move the virtual disk file (VDI in my case) to the new PC, make sure the version of VirtualBox on the new PC is the same as the version on the old PC, and rebuild the VM settings on the new PC to match what the old PC had for that VM, finally pointing the new VM at the copied VDI and firing it up. Works every time. (Version 3.1.2, here, don't know what 4.0.? would do)

Problem with import/export, I think, is that the UUID's of the disks, and possibly other stuff in the VM, gets changed, because Virtualbox can't have more than one disk or other resource with the same UUID, and this causes Windows to re-activate.

Just moving the VDI's like I have, without reactivating, might cause UUID duplication, but I haven't had it happen yet.

Anyway, re-activation isn't that big of a deal, unless you do it too many times. Once in a few months or twice in a year should not raise the hackles of Mr. Bill.

[mpack]

(Version 3.1.2, here, don't know what 4.0.? would do)

v4 should make life easier, because you can move an entire VM without having to change any of the VM UUIDs (moving the VDI file only avoids changing the disk UUID).

In any case, see the sticky at the top of this forum, created specifically to cover the subject. This additional thread is redundant.

[Bullitt]

Would it work just copying the entire VM folder with all contents and then laster use "add"?????

[mpack]

Would it work just copying the entire VM folder with all contents and then laster use "add"?????

If the VM was created by v4 then it should work. v3 and earlier VMs were not intended to be portable, and not self contained within one folder.

[Bullitt]

guess what!


i does work - I am running 4.0.x and just copying folders and then "add" the VM back works - no re-activation required...