virtualbox.org

Guest: Windows Server 2003
Host: Win7

Is Hiberfil.sys used by the VB Save Sate process? If not is there a way to delete it?

The usual way on a native Windows machine does not work-
powercfg -h off

Hibernation failed with the following error: The request is not supported
The following items are preventing hibernation on this system.
The system firmware does not support hibernation.

VirtualBox knows absolutely nothing about "Hiberfil.sys" file on your guest. It doesn't care what files are in the guest. When you "Save State" a guest, a ".sav" file is created on your host with the contents of the memory at the time, but nothing on the guest. Why you can't delete the file, is actually a Windows question and you would be better served if you took a look at a Windows forum or with the appropriate Google search.

Thanks that makes perfect sense.

Given the error message, does VB affect the way Windows might be interpreting the firmware?

The BIOS tells the guest OS that hibernation makes no sense, and the guest OS tells you the same, via the error message.

You suspend a VM using the "save state" feature of VirtualBox: which saves the guest state on the host. You have no need of the guest OS internal feature.

Was this perhaps a physical server you made a virtual one? If so the hyberfil.sys is vestigial and not doing anything. Will Windows let you delete it? If not DL a Linux live distro, mount the drive after booting to it in the VM from the ISO and delete it. if it comes back then Windows is creating it for some reason. The "hardware" that is reported by the VB BIOS simply does not supply what's needed to allow hibernation, it just won't work. When suspending a VM in VB the VM's state is saved OUTSIDE the VM in the hosts filesystem along side the VM's disk file.

Look at the guests registry here: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Power\HibernateEnabled it should be set to 0, if not change it there and reboot. If it's recreated after that then you have some sort of utility or something that is recreating it. If you just can't get Windows to cooperate then you can set the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Power\HiberFileSizePercent to decimal 1 which will make the hyberfil.sys very small.

Got it many thanks!