Upgrading windows Guest

[robbyx]

Currently I am using WinXP and I wish to upgrade to Win 7. Can you please point me to some instructions how to do the upgrade within VB, so that I can avoid reinstalling programs.

[BillG]

There is no upgrade path from XP to Windows 7. Nothing to do with VirtualBox - Microsoft did not ever implement it. You would need to do a clean install of Windows 7, whether you are on a virtual or physical machine.

[TheMadAlienist]

Sorry to revive an older post, but can you use a Win7 Upgrade disc from within VB?

I am new to VB and I am running a legal copy of winXp. Years ago I purchased an upgrade disc to upgrade to Win7.

Thanks

[BillG]

I think it would be worth a try. I would change the type and version of the vm and increase the memory allocation to suit Windows 7 first, then assign the upgrade disc to the guest's optical drive and run it from within XP in the guest.

[TheMadAlienist]

I think it would be worth a try. I would change the type and version of the vm and increase the memory allocation to suit Windows 7 first, then assign the upgrade disc to the guest's optical drive and run it from within XP in the guest.

I tired it and you re correct. It does not work. Basically the disk is designed to be the boot disk of the machine. It checks for WinXP and then does an upgrade. But you cannot ave Win XP booted, it has to start from the disk. I do not believe that I can create a new VB for this Win7 because it is going to be looking for the files. Is there a way to get a Guest to boot from a CD drive. I would not think so.

Thanks

[BillG]

Of course there is - in fact it is the default setting. Look at the system section of the vm settings to see the boot options.

In the storage section of settings, set the optical drive of the vm to use the host CD drive and start the vm. If your CD is in the physical drive and the CD is bootable the vm will boot from it.