[chbot] Virtual machine selection

[Robin Gilks]

> Hi All,
> I am interested in building a Virtual Machine running under Win7/64.
> Have just tried Oracle VM VirtualBox, but despite quite a bit of effort,
> have failed to- Attach to an external USB flash drive- Failed to export a
> Win7/32 image to another VirtualBox machine (of the same version !).Each
> of these failures are described in the forums as 'common issues', which I
> find astonishing.

I've used VirtualBox for quite a number of years and although it has a few
quirks, it has a level of control from a command line utility that makes
it very powerful. All sort of hacks are available at this lower level.

For copying from one machine to another - you can't just copy the image
file over. You have to export from one and import into a blank machine on
the new host. This allows the system to provide the 'outer shell' specific
to the new host and provide all the facilities the guest requires.

Later versions of VB are better at this than some early versions so make
sure you are using the latest and greatest.

One feature you'll find extremely useful (I do!!) is being able to take a
snapshot of the guest before you try installing some dodgy software and
being able to roll back very easily. Great for testing if an ISO image of
an OS you have just created with customisations actually installs and
works!!


-- 
Robin Gilks