virtualbox.org

Greetings,

I am running VirtualBox 4.3.28 on a Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit) host. I created a VM for Windows 8.1 (64-bit), installed the Chinese Language Pack and changed my locale to Chinese. Everything runs great.

Then, I create a linked clone of that VM (to keep my base untouched), and the language pack in the clone is NOT installed.

Is this expected? I didn't expect that to be the case. Any help is greatly appreciated.

I wouldn't have expected it. At any rate, did you try creating a normal clone? Or for that matter, why not just make a backup copy of the original?

loukingjr wrote:I wouldn't have expected it. At any rate, did you try creating a normal clone? Or for that matter, why not just make a backup copy of the original?

It's weird, right? I guess I can create a full clone, but I was just trying to conserve HD space.

seems a little weird. I thought of saving HD space after I posted. maybe someone else knows why that happened.

What's odd is that my Windows 7 Ultimate (32-bit) doesn't have this problem. The linked clone already has the Chinese language pack.

Are you using Snapshots in the original VM maybe? In any case, VM log of relevant session and the VM config would shed light on your issue - see Minimum information needed for assistance.

Attached are two zip files, one for the base and one for the clone. Both contain a session and starup log file. My apologies for not attaching them initially.

How do I get the VM config?

For the VM config, you can just attach the .vbox file within the VM folder

So looking at the logs you gave, you're using snapshots. My guess is that you cloned using the base state and not the latest snapshot containing your language pack.
The VM configs will give us the answer to that.

I don't use snapshots or linked clones so I have not tested this, but my guess would be that the original VM was suspended after the language pack install, not shut down.

Edit:  Just saw Max's response. I guess I just don't know what would happen if you asked for a linked clone of a VM which already uses snapshots. p.s. Snapshots and linked clones do not save disk space. Quite the contrary! They grow like crazy after creation and will soon require more that a simple clone would. And, space management is difficult to impossible. Too late now though, as the procedure is irreversible (since the original VM is modified too).

mpack wrote:I don't use snapshots or linked clones so I have not tested this, but my guess would be that the original VM was suspended after the language pack install, not shut down.

Edit:  Just saw Max's response. I guess I just don't know what would happen if you asked for a linked clone of a VM which already uses snapshots. p.s. Snapshots and linked clones do not save disk space. Quite the contrary! They grow like crazy after creation and will soon require more that a simple clone would. And, space management is difficult to impossible. Too late now though, as the procedure is irreversible (since the original VM is modified too).

Thanks everyone for your answers.

mpack, I don't care about tossing the clone. I'm a bit of a VirtualBox beginner. Is there a way to modify the original to NOT use snapshots? I don't think I'm restoring the state from a snapshot when I load the base. I power it on every time.

Thanks.

When you create a linked clone the base VDI must be frozen so it can be shared, and both the original and the VM start using difference images (same tech as snapshots) instead of directly using the original VM. This requires a juggling of the control information in both VMs.

I know of no direct way to undo this, short of restoring the original VM from a backup - which would have been very sensible but I assume was not done.

The only other way would be to create a full clone of the newest state of the original VM (clone current state only, don't reset network MAC address). That should create a stand alone clone which, after testing, can be retained while all older copies are deleted. In future don't create snapshots (make backups when you want to preserve a state), and don't use linked clones - fully independant clones only.

All IMO of course, but I've been doing this a while now.

IMPORTANT: one drawback with the above is that you're using Win8. That means that the clone will need to be reactivated.

Thank you for your assistance, mpack. How does one get VirtualBox to not make snapshots? It seems to be doing it automatically.

VirtualBox does not create snapshots automatically. You have to tell it to create a snapshot, or you have to tell it to create a linked clone.

And don't confuse snapshots with ".sav" files (essentially memory dumps) which are created when you suspend a VM.