virtualbox.org

I searched for this, but there seems to be several solutions out there, and I am not sure what applies to my use scenario and whether the information in find on the net might be outdated, so I'll try to ask here.

I'd like to make a Windows 2000 virtual machine with a specific program setup that I would like to store on a USB-stick. I would like to boot, access and change the data on this virtual machine by booting the image from the USB-stick from VB installations on several different physical machines. I am going to use Windows hosts, but if possible would be ideal if I also could use the stick/VM on a Linux machine/host. I would have thought that you could simply store the file used by VB for a VM on the USB and then load it in VB installations on different hosts, but apparently that is not possible. What is recommended way to achieve this?

JanT wrote:I would have thought that you could simply store the file used by VB for a VM on the USB and then load it in VB installations on different hosts, but apparently that is not possible. What is recommended way to achieve this?

It isn't recommended at all (due to the unreliability and generally low performance of removable drives), but it is quite possible. You simply copy the VM folder onto the USB stick, and use Machine|Add on each host to register it. The desire to use it on foreign host OSs complicates matters: I would tackle that by having one VM folder for each different host OS, each referencing the same VDI file stored in a common folder.

There are other portability issues, e.g. bridged networks bridge to a named host adapter which obviously may not exist. Generally network connections between host and guest will be broken because the host name keeps changing. Also some guests (i.e. Windows XP and later) will detect CPU changes and may demand to be reactivated. Also, of course the VM "size" (e.g. 32b vs 64b, RAM size) will have to fit a lowest common denominator.

thanks for the reply, I'm starting to see the complications. However, I don't need network, and plan on using Win2000 as a guest, so I might be good. I shouldn't need a great deal of memory either. You say I can provide for a Linux host by " having one VM folder for each different host OS, each referencing the same VDI file stored in a common folder". I'll look into how to make a common folder.

What about "Portable-Virtualbox". www vbox me/ Is this something that provides any advantages over this solution?

A "common folder" is not a virtualbox feature. I just mean some other folder where you choose to put the VDI file.

Portable-VirtualBox is someone else's fork which I know little about. I believe their goal is that you don't have to install VBox on the host, it would be a bit like a live CD. However, we don't support third party forks so you'd need to seek support from them if you want to go that route.