This is another maintenance release – after reading the changelog you might not feel it’s worth installing, depending on if you’re effected by any of the issues fixed. As usual, both the update & the Extension Pack to go with it are available at virtualbox[.]org.
Normally you can just install the update over an existing copy of V/Box, then when you 1st fire it up, before starting any VMs, go to File -> Preferences -> Extensions to uninstall the old Extension Pack, and install the new one. With a VM running you can then install the new Extension Pack… By default a VM includes a virtual optical disc drive, which also by default mounts the Extension Pack ISO – you can change which ISO to mount in the settings for a VM on the main, host window, or in the VM window under the Device menu. For me, Win10’s compatibility troubleshooter says to run the extension setup app in Win8 compatibility mode, but otherwise it just works, and will ask you to restart the VM after it finishes – Win7 [& XP] require you to boot the VM to Safe Mode [msconfig in Win7] to run the extension setup if you want to update the graphics driver.
Each copy of an OS [Windows, Linux etc.] requires a separate hard disk or partition, and with VMs that means a separate VHD [Virtual Hard Disk]. The VHD with a copy of Windows [or Linux etc.] can be copied & pasted like any other file, while the actual machine is contained in a few files in the C:\Users\ [UserName]\ folder. If you use a VHD [or copy of a VHD] with Windows installed on it in another VM machine you’ll probably need to reactivate Windows, same as if you moved a hard disk from one PC to another. You can however copy the files holding the machine, and a copy of the VHD with Windows on it associated with that machine will still work with it and still be activated. The only catch is that you might have to do some text editing in the configuration file(s) so that paths work, e.g., when the copy of the machine is going to be used in a copy of Windows with a different UserName.
There are 2 main types of VHDs – static and dynamically expanding. Static VHDs are always the size you specify when you create them – expanding VHDs start small & grow as needed. The disadvantage of expanding VHDs is that they are slower to write to when writing a file or files means that the VHD has to grow. I use expanding VHDs, and after an update like Windows monthly update or a new V/Box extension pack I compact them to keep the VHD files as small as possible. Compacting the VHD means storing only data, and not any of the free disk space.
V/Box native VHDs have a .vdi extension, while Microsoft VHDs, which can be easily created in Windows, use .vhd. Microsoft expanding .vhd files can be compacted fairly easily using Microsoft’s Powershell, but it requires Hyper-V be installed in Windows, which unfortunately means V/Box won’t work – there is a setting you can make in V/Box so it will work when Hyper-V’s installed, but then V/Box runs dead dog slow in my experience. So all the VHDs I use for my VMs use .vdi, which can be compacted easily using a free app named CloneVDI. V/Box will work fine with Windows installed on a .vhd file, and CloneVDI will compact that .vhd file into a .vdi file.
The process I use to compact the .vdi VHDs holding my VMs, is I’ll first delete any temp files, run the Windows Disk Cleanup utility etc. Then I like to attach that .vdi to a Win10 VM, start that Win10 VM, delete the pagefile.sys & swapfile.sys files on the VHD to be compacted, then run Win10’s disk optimize on that drive to defrag it – I feel that Windows defrag moves more otherwise unmovable files. Then I run an older defrag app called MyDefrag on the VHD to do a bit more consolidating. Next, I’ll run an old Microsoft app called Precompact that was released with Win7’s XP Mode VM to zero out the parts of the VHD that are unused – I think some folks use the Sysintenal’s SDelete tool instead, but I prefer the easy to use Precompact. After that I’ll shut down the VM, and use CloneVDI to copy it, compacting the .vdi file at the same time. I’ve found that the CloneVDI tool will still compact VHDs if I skip the defrag &/or precompact steps – those 2 steps just make the result a bit smaller. CloneVDI will rename the copy – I generally rename the existing .vdi -> .vd_, and rename the copy appropriately, then make sure the VM still works before deleting the old copy [I’ve only had one error for about 100 copies, but an error is an error so I play it safe].
Notes: *For My Purposes* I consider V/Box snapshots bunk, and don’t use them. Since a VM’s OS is stored completely on a VHD, and since the VHDs used by my VMs are fairly small, I just store copies of those VHDs. Backup apps don’t like VHDs in my experience, and neither .zip or 7-Zip makes much difference in size, so I just copy them as-is. I store base copies of my VMs with just the software I want installed, installed. When I want to restore a VM after experimenting or testing software etc. I copy the base VHD over the one I just used – no muss, no fuss, nothing to track. I make a new base copy whenever there’s a somewhat major update to a VM, e.g. Windows Patch Tuesday, and I save the old base VHD with a .vd_ extension. If it turns out that a Windows patch screwed things up, I just go back to that older VHD pretty painlessly. Then when there’s another update & I want to create another base copy VHD, I delete the .vd_, rename the current base VHD .vd_, and save the new base copy, so I always have 2 base copies for each VM, one older, one current.
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