Guest Additions and different hosts

[splisp]

Hi everybody,

I have created a Win7 VM on a portable HD, and I carry it from place to place; I am using it from both Linux and Windows hosts. There are several discussions on the subject of VM sharing, but I couldn't find an answer to my GAs question (below).

I am aware of the fact that I cannot suspend the machine while running on a host and restore it on another host, so I always perform a guest OS shutdown to close it. Please correct me if I am wrong...

What I am concerned about most, anyway, are Guest Additions... are GAs dependant only from the guest? Can I safely use the VM on a Windows host if the GAs were installed while running on the Ubuntu host? (or viceversa)

Thanks!
Fabrizio

[Perryg]

Since the guest additions are installed in the guest there should be little chance of a mismatch due to different hosts. Shared resources though may. Things like shared folders and even the network adapter could be an issue.

[splisp]

Hi Perry,
the ISO image the Guest Additions are installed from, is part of the VirtualBox package, and this is obviously a different program for each host OS; I am going to compare the ISO images in both the Windows and Ubuntu VirtualBox installations, if it turns out that they are exactly the same then there should be no issue. Otherwise...

[MasterKGB]

I do sharing also my VMs with Linux and windows

Let me say I always keep the versions the same and havent got any problems till now.

means if I update the VB on linux to a new version (host) I update the Windows one also, it havent matter till now from with system I installed the Guest addions

My guests are Windows and Linux based.

[mpack]

The GAs know nothing about the host - they "talk" to the VirtualBox application, part of whose job it is to translate VM "requests" into host operations. So the host app is different for each host, but the guest is the same.