Upgrading PC - Exporting/Importing question

[Donatello76]

Hi guys,

I'm about to perform a major upgrade on my PC. The plan is to also move from 32-bit Ubuntu 10.04 to 64-bit Ubuntu 10.04 as I'll be having 12GB RAM to play around with instead of my current 4GB RAM. I have two Windows 7 guests that I'll need to transfer to my new Ubuntu installation.

Note: I'll be Exporting my current guests and import it again on my new 64-bit Ubuntu host. Current host is using VBox 4.1.2.

I have some questions before I start doing the upgrade...

1) Will the move from a 32-bit host to a 64-bit host be a problem? I'm pretty sure it won't be, just asking anyway.
2) Will there be any Windows licensing issues when I import the guests on the new host?
3) I've noticed that the Export reduces the size of an image around 50%, is that correct?

Any tips and help will be greatly appreciated!

[mpack]

There is no fundamental problem with your plan, however I would not use export/import. Instead if it was me I would simply back up the VirtualBox data folders ("<user>/.VirtualBox" and "<user>/VirtualBox VMs") and restore them later (I assume your plan involves wiping the system drive). Of course this probably works best if username is the same before and after, just in case some VM stores an absolute path to a disk image.

[Donatello76]

TY for your response mpack. I am curious though, why would you not use the export/import function?

[mpack]

Export/Import uses VMWare standards, hence involves translating all VM settings to a non VBox format and converting them back later - and the translation doesn't always work reliably. However even assuming that it does work, it also involves converting all drive images to VMDK format, which I would not want to do because VDI is the optimal format for use with VirtualBox.

In any case just on general principles alone: you don't take a working system, create an untested modified version of it, and call the latter a backup. You copy the original data.

All of the above is my personal prejudices, but that's what you asked for.

[John-Billmer]

sorry for ditching in mpack, but that´s of interest to me aswell - have moved from Snow Leopard to Lion and used Export. Didn´t work in that way that the VM (guest XP) boots but comes to halt at the logon screen (windows=blue with dialogue box), I cannot enter anything with the keybord...hm

Following your advice, I also did copy the flattened vdi-file and connected it in Liion to my VM and had the same issues - weird not-functioning. I read on the web that I should release the vdi in the old Snow Leopard environment, that sounds reasonable; the same author recommended to fiddle around with xml-files and tweak the absolute paths...not sure about that. Is this necessary?

Thanks for your input,

John

[mpack]

A blue screen on Windows boot after changing hosts is usually caused by one of two things: a different host processor (which doesn't seem to apply to you), or a change in the virtual disk controller type (e.g. a change from IDE to SATA or a change from IDE type x to IDE type y). You would have to check the latter manually, by comparing VM settings.

The stuff you've been told about releasing VDIs from the old system, and tweaking paths on the new - is all garbage. VirtualBox will tell you quite clearly if it can't find needed files. A BSOD on startup is a "hardware" problem with the guest, not a problem with the location or registration status of files on the host.