Using the same VM on two different machines

[Brian B]

I spent yesterday afternoon and most of this morning searching this site and throughout the internet. There are many topics that are close but could only find one that was asking to do exactly what I'm trying to do and the thread was basically "Can this be done" and it was answered "yes" but the thread quickly turning hostile without giving an explanation of how.

So forgive me for starting another similar thread but I couldn't find an explanation anywhere else on the site.

I have a Home PC running Win7 64bit and has the latest version of VirtualBox installed.
I have a work PC running Win7 64bit and has the latest version of VirutalBox installed.

I have an small USB 3 hard drive that is 1TB. I have both computers configured so that when I plug in the drive Windows defaults the drive to drive X:

I want to build a VM that resides on the external hard drive, that I can take to work, load up and work with, then save the state, then bring the drive home, fire up the VM and continue where I left off. Rinse and repeat.

I have attempted to do this more times then I'd like to admit. I love virtualbox, it's so easy to use. I've had little to no problems using it for a while now, it just works great. I've got a years and years of IT experience and this should be easy stuff. . . I fell like an complete novice, no matter what I try it just doesn't work. I know I'm missing something obvious, some please show me the light.

[Brian B]

Some further background on what I've tried,

I tried to import it into the second computer, (which required me to go back and export it first), but ended up with two different VM's.
I tried to create a new VM in the second computer, but instead of created a new virtual drive I pointed it at the one I already had, and was told the directory already existed.
I tried to use the virtual machine folder setting on the second computer to somehow 'browse' or see the already created VM but I wouldn't. Although any newly created VM was place in the same folder as the existing VM I was trying to access.

The most common end result for my trials was that I ended up with two VM's, each one working on one of the computers.

Thanks for the help!

[Perryg]

Both computers must have VirtualBox installed on them. Then you can have the guest on the removable drive and use the add feature to add it to VirtualBox.
Keep in mind that the PCs should be close to the same and the guest must be shut down ( not saved state ). Now depending on the guest this may trip an activation instance.

If the two machines are identical it may be possible to use saved state, but that is rarely the case.

[bobkelso]

Hi,

I found this post after some rechearch and i have almost the same question than Brian B.

If i rightly understood, if i have 2 PC and a virtualbox Guest on an external drive i can use one after one the Guest as long as i don't "Saved" between two uses.

But my question is, is it still going to work between a PC and a Mac OS (instead of 2PC) ?

Thanks you very much.
(And sorry if it's not really clear, English is not my main language )

[Perryg]

All anyone can say it is should work. Testing is the only way to be certain.

[chinmul]

Hi,

I have a similar problem. I have a windows XP 32 bit guest that runs fine on laptop (1) - a Lenovo G50 thinkpad with an AMD CPU windows 7 sp1 64 bit.
I copied the guests virtual disk file to machine (2) a Lenovo Thinkpad T420 with an Intel CPU running Windows 7 sp 1 64bit. However on machine (2) the guest hangs about
a minute into the booting process. I have tried using various versions of Virtual box from 4.3.3. to 5.06 but this problem of the VM hanging persists.

The only thing different between the two machines is the CPU AMD v/s Intel. Why is the Win XP 32 bit guest running only on machine (1) and not machine (2). No error messages
are shown on screen.

Thanks