Deleting Guests

[jaa17]

Hi,

I am trying to read everything up before actually installing VirtualBox and there are a few things I cannot seem to find. I want to be able to completely recover all hard-disk space etc if I uninstall.

So I want to know how to delete a guest I create? Do I have to do this prior to uninstall, or does the uninstall of VirtualBox automatically delete the guests I have created?

Also, does anyone know of a simple newbies guide to setting up a Linux Guest on a Windows Machine? (Including any oddities I have to be aware of guidelines for RAm, HD space etc, if any.)

Does anyone know of any legal MacOsX iso? Free or purchased, but must be legit.

[mpack]

So I want to know how to delete a guest I create? Do I have to do this prior to uninstall, or does the uninstall of VirtualBox automatically delete the guests I have created?

Newbies always seem to believe that there's something magical about VirtualBox. Specifically, they think that because it simulates hardware it must affect their hosts hardware somehow in special ways, perhaps difficult to undo ways...

It doesn't. It's an application like any other, it uses networking and creates disk files and uses CPU and calls to host APIs like any other app. If you no longer want this app then you uninstall it, and if you no longer want the document files either (which is how the VM data is stored), then you delete those files. End of story.

Also, does anyone know of a simple newbies guide to setting up a Linux Guest on a Windows Machine? (Including any oddities I have to be aware of guidelines for RAm, HD space etc, if any.)

Apart from making sure not to use more RAM than your host can afford, no you just follow the generic installation instructions on the Ubuntu site or whatever. You probably need to know more about the requirements of Ubuntu (or whatever) than you do about VirtualBox.

Does anyone know of any legal MacOsX iso? Free or purchased, but must be legit.

Important notice regarding Mac OS X as Guest.

[jaa17]

Wow, thanks for such a quick response.

If you no longer want this app then you uninstall it, and if you no longer want the document files either (which is how the VM data is stored), then you delete those files.

This is good stuff. So I guess my question is: 'Where on my Vista system hard-drive will my guest document files be stored, so I know where to delete them if required?'

You probably need to know more about the requirements of Ubuntu (or whatever) than you do about VirtualBox.

This is very true. I am very used to Windows-Lingo and am unsure about Linux-Lingo. By this I mean, through years of experience I have become aware that if Microsoft are saying 'Minimum Requirement' they are actually saying 'Theoretically your OS will run with this setup, but boy it will struggle'. Similarly a windows 'Recommended Requirements' tag means, 'Yep this will work OK, but it wont fly'. So what you generally do is go with the Recommended stats and a little bit more. Then things work fine.

So I guess what I was really asking the VirtualBox community was, 'If I have the available ram/hd-space etc, what setup would make the Ubuntu-12.04 work nicely with unobservable harassments or personal psychological disorders after weeks of use?'

[mpack]

In your documents folder there is another folder called "VirtualBox VMs", inside of which are your VMs, one subfolder each, each containing all files related to one VM.

If VirtualBox is still installed on your PC then the proper way to delete a VM is using the GUI manager, which unregisters it with the manager (i.e. removes it from the table of available VMs), in addition to (optionally) deleting the actual files. If VirtualBox has already been uninstalled then of course the table has gone and you can simply delete the data files.

[ChipMcK]

And as the final step, empty the trash