virtualbox.org

I'm not a heavy duty user of VB or Linux, so I struggle with OS and app upgrades. I've searched the VB user manual and forums but cannot find an answer for some simple questions. I would appreciate any help in locating pertinent documentation.

I'm running Ubuntu 10.04 and want to up grade VB 3.2.xx to 4.1.xx.
-- Should I remove 3.2 before installing 4.1?
-- Do I need to do anything to my VM (Windows 7x64)?

Thanks,

Don

Do you have snapshots of the guest? Or only one plan vdi file?

The upgrade procedure is described in the VirtualBox FAQ. It says to remove the currently installed VB version, then install the new version. This is because of a new major release of VB. If it would be an update, e.g. from 3.2.12 to 3.2.14, no problem, you can update in place, but going from 3.2 to 4.0 or 4.1, then it's a major update and since there is a difference in functions, they decided to call the versions different and conflict on previous releases, so it gives as few issues as possible.

You should not have to do anything with the VM, it will be kept and should work without any problems. But, as with all major updates, it's a good idea to make a backup of the VMs and the configuration files just in case something does happen and you need to revert back to 3.2.

Sasquatch,

Thank you very much for your reply. I've found the FAQ and don't know how my previous searches missed it. I think this info is important enough that it should be placed in the installation instructions in the users' manual. Is that something you can help with?

Don

Sorry, I don't work for Oracle nor have any influence in what goes into the user manual. The most likely reason is that when people install a new major release manually, the error message they get would normally be enough of a hint of what's going on to fix it. If you have set up to use the repository, the package manager would automatically fix it, presenting you with what it will do in order to fix dependencies.