Noobie here needs help with VM on Windows 7

[Perzaklie]

I have searched but been unable to find a solution to my problem. Being new to VM Virtual Box, I stumbled around and got Windows 10, Windows XP and Ubuntu running on my Windows 7 machine yesterday. The setup took me through the whole Windows install routine, activation code, etc., etc. They all three worked very well running simultaneously. When I shut down each session, I selected Power Off.

Today, I wanted to explore Windows 10 more so when I started my Windows 10 session, it started as a new install all over again. Thinking I must have done something wrong, I tried XP just to see and it does the same. I have to go back through the whole install bit again, same with Ubuntu.

Is this the way VM Virtual Box works or did I do a major screw-up when I set these up? Is there a tutorial on the board that I have overlooked? Or perhaps a tutorial somewhere else I could refer to?

Any assistance is appreciated!

[MPerz]

When powering down a virtual machine, you should do so from within the guest (i.e: Start > Shut Down in Windows). Clicking the X and selecting "Power off" from the Virtualbox GUI is the same as pulling the power cable from a running physical PC. My guess is that the installation media is still installed to the virtual CD/DVD drives of each guest and they're booting from it whenever you power them on.

[BillG]

That is my guess as well. The same thing will happen on a physical machine if you leave the installation disk in the drive.