virtualbox.org

Hi,

I want to move my VirtualBox VM from a MacOS Host to a Windows Host. What is the best way to accomplish this task.

I hope to hear from you soon.

Regards.

Robin

I'm not sure there won't be any hocus-pocus needed because the old host was Mac and the new host is Windows, but it may be as simple as this: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=55003 "Moving a VM". As long as you leave the guest in place and unchanged on your Mac host you can make copies anywhere as experiments and still keep your original guest. Try it and report back if anything goes bad.

The basic idea, if you made the guest using Version 4.something of Virtualbox, is to copy the whole guest folder, which ought to contain all the files for the guest including the virtual drive file, to the new host, then register the new guest with the new host by opening the guest's .vbox file. (see the link for details)

If the guest OS or a program within the guest needed activation of some kind, like Windows OS's, you may and probably will have to re-activate. And if your new host doesn't have VT-x enabled and usable, you'll get issues if your guest used it on the Mac.

The FAQ method should just about work, the main problem being that embedded file paths will be wrong. Ditto if you mapped in any host device (connected to a host serial port, CD drive, bridged to a network adapter etc). In an ideal world the VM folder is entirely self contained and doesn't contain any absolute paths or links to host devices. If you're confident then you can give the .vbox file a quick look with a text editor and fix any problem before you register it on the VirtualBox GUI.

It might also help to create a dummy VM on your Windows host so you can examine the .vbox file and see the differences.

Worst case is tha you have to build a new VM around the existing disk - but don't use that as a first resort since it may have consequences for software activation.