Moving GuestOS's from one computer to another

[starach]

Hello,
Do I have to do anything extraordinary than just copy and paste a virtual machine settings and its hard drive?

I want to move GuestOS I'm using on my development machine which is running under Windows 7 to Linux Debian dedicated server.

[Perryg]

What version of VirtualBox are you using? On both hosts.

[starach]

I haven't started installing guest system on my developer machine yet. Hosting company will turn on my dedicated server in the middle of the next week so I just don't want to waste time and start deploying operating system. Therefore you can say I'm not using any VirtualBox yet. Right now I have VirtualBox 4.1.2 on my Windows 7.

[Perryg]

Assuming that the guest in question was created using version 4.* or newer it should be as simple as copying the entire guests folder to the new machine and then dbl clicking the *.vbox file that is inside. Again this all requires the new host to have the same version of VirtualBox or at least in the 4.* range.

The host environment change may be the only thing that is going to cause issues but I have moved between Windows and Linux with little to no changes required. The really big thing that would cause you an issue is the bit count. While you can move a 32-bit to a 64-bit the reverse will not work.

You may need to install the guest additions again but this is usually not the case.