Migrating form existing VMLite .vhd

[BillPierce]

I suspect the answers to all my questions are floating around here somewhere, but I'm hoping someone can help a newbie by pointing me to those places or answering my questions directly.

I originally had Virtual XP Mode running under Windows 7 Pro because I have a couple of legacy apps that won't run otherwise. When I upgraded to Windows 8 I had to switch to VMLite, but I was able to keep the existing XP Mode .vhd file and get it to run. When I upgraded again to Windows 10 Pro I didn't seem to need to do anything--that is, until I discovered that VMLite no longer seems to allow me to connect to USB devices (I can still see the devices on the host, but after trying to select any of them in the guest, it hangs for nearly 5 minutes and doesn't connect.

So I'm wondering if migrating to VirtualBox might be a solution. It does seem to support USB, and I suspect I would have no problem installing it--except that there seem to be a lot of questions about how to convert the existing .vhd file from VMLite to work with VirtualBox.

So basically, two questions:

1. Will VirtualBox 5.0 support USB devices in a Windows XP guest on a Windows 10 Pro host?

2. What do I need to do to convert the existing VMLite .vhd file to work with VirtualBox? Creating a new XP Virtual Machine is not an option; I have too much time invested in the existing XP installation to go back to square one.

I would be exceedingly grateful for guidance.

[mpack]

VirtualBox will support USB2 devices with any host and guest if you install the extension pack on the host. Whether that will help you migrate a VMLite VM I can't tell you (never used it), but seeing that VMLite is a fork of VirtualBox I wouldn't expect much difficulty.

If your host has USB3 then USB2 devices should still be supported, but XP itself has no support for USB3... except that the 5.0.10 VirtualBox release did just add experimental support for a non-Intel xHCI chipset. viewtopic.php?f=15&t=74575.

I would suggest converting the VHD to VDI format before use. VHD really isn't a very good format: the only reason it survives is because Microsoft is behind it, and even they are planning a move to VHDX (a completely different format given a similar name as a comfort blanket).

[BillPierce]

As I feared, I need more guidance in converting from the existing XP Mode running under VMLite to Virtual Box.

I first converted my existing XP Mode .vhd file to .vdi format. Then I installed Virtual Box 5.0.10 and the extensions. When I opened Virtual Box, the .vdi file was there. However, when I tried to open it I received several error messages.

Trying to open it under VMLite didn't work either. Apparently VirtualBox makes changes to the Registry that are incompatible with VMLite. The only solution at that point was to do a Windows system restore from an earlier restore point. Fortunately, I can again run XP Mode under VMLite (still with the inability to select a USB device). Of course that wiped out the VirtualBox install.

So I'm back to my second question in my earlier message: how do I convert VMLite's Virtual XP Mode to work with VirtualBox?

[scottgus1]

However, when I tried to open it I received several error messages.

I suspect a tad more info about this part might allow some further assistance.

[BillPierce]

I'll have to wait until I have a little more time. Because I have to do a system restore before I again have the ability to run XP Mode, the VirtualBox install, error message, system restore process takes about 30 minutes each time.

[mpack]

You can't "open" a VDI, or a "VHD" for that matter. Those are disk images, not virtual machines. You need to create a VM, and include this hard disk image in the VM recipe.

In the VirtualBox GUI, select "New". When you get the hard disk creation step, select "Use existing" and point it at your VDI (tip: it's best to keep the VDI in the VM folder, so before choosing your VDI move it into the newly created VM folder "c:\<userdoc>\VirtualBox VMs\<VM name>".

[BillPierce]

I should be more precise with my terminology. Yes, I mean when I run VirtualBox, I see the image (.vdi) for Virtual XP Mode. I get the error messages when I try to start it.

[BillPierce]

Ok, here are the error messages when I try to start the converted VMLIte XP Mode:

Error message

Error message 1.jpg (57.56 KiB) Viewed 3552 times

Error Message 2:

Failed to open a session for the virtual machine Virtual XP Mode.

The virtual machine 'Virtual XP Mode' has terminated unexpectedly during startup with exit code 1 (0x1). More details may be available in 'C:\Users\Bill Pierce\VirtualBox VMs\Virtual XP Mode\Logs\VBoxHardening.log'.

Result Code: E_FAIL (0x80004005)
Component: MachineWrap
Interface: IMachine {f30138d4-e5ea-4b3a-8858-a059de4c93fd}

[Martin]

Do you have Avira installed on your host?

[BillPierce]

<< Do you have Avira installed on your host? <<

No.

[scottgus1]

Post the "VBoxHardening.log" mentioned in the error. Zipped, please.

[BillPierce]

Here you go (see attachment):

[BillPierce]

Was the log file not useful in determining a cause? I'm still trying to get to the bottom of this problem.

[mpack]

I'm not sure this has anything to do with hardening. OBJECT_NOT_FOUND sounds more like an install problem. Possibly it's getting confusing because it's finding VMLite remnants. How completely did you get rid of the latter? I.e. did you start with a new host entirely, did you merely uninstall VMlite, or did you do nothing?