34 thoughts on “Virtual Box”

1. Look at the icon’s details to find which program it’s running. Find the directory where the program lives. Nuke the entire subtree–you may have to look around and delete the containing directory. This isn’t guaranteed to get everything, though, if (for example) it throws files in /etc/rc or something.

   On the other hand, you could go into VB’s forums and ask the question–you’re more likely to find someone who will know exactly what to do.

2. https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-delete-inaccessible-virtualbox-vms-from-the-command-line/

   1. The above shows you how to remove/un-register a broken VM without having to un-install Virtual Box on your Linux host. Did this not work? Once this has been done you should be able to create a new VM from scratch with its own .vmdk file etc.

      Is there a specific reason why you want to re-install Virtual Box itself? To get to a newer version, etc? Forums are probably your best bet. A *very* quick DDG search yielded this link:

      https://askbot.fedoraproject.org/en/question/108241/how-do-i-uninstall-virtualbox-from-fedora/

      Essentially if there is any chance you installed it via rpm at all you should be able to find and remove it via these two commands:

      % rpm -qa | grep -i virtualbox
      % dnf remove PACKAGENAME

      where the first command gives you what to put in place of
      PACKAGENAME.

      Then go to Oracle’s Webpage here to install a new copy:
      https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads

      Here’s a handy tutorial that should do it for you once you’ve un-installed what you have:

      https://tecadmin.net/install-oracle-virtualbox-on-fedora/

      But again, none of this is necessary if all you want to do is rebuild a new Windows VM.

      1. VirtualBox itself is broken, and won’t let me create a new VM. I think the best solution is to just do a clean install. I’ve grepped for the VirtualBox packages; they don’t exist.

         1. Did you try the VM removal step described in the first link I sent you first?

            1. Not yet. I won’t get to it until after regular trading hours. I can’t keep an eye on my open positions while I’m working on that machine. Thanks, though.

            2. Oh, I misread this. As I said, the issue is not removing the VM; I can do that just by blowing away its directory. I want to uninstall VB.

3. “OK, so I’ve given up on restoring my previous Windows guest machine,”

   This was going to be my suggestion, in addition to hiring a librarian to organize your files.

   “and am going to create a new one”

   This was not going to be my suggestion.

   Hobbies are fun, most of the time.

   1. I heartily recommend not reformatting the device you are trying to back up.

   2. This is not a hobby. It is essential that I have access to a Windows machine.

      1. Essential is an even better argument for, say, buying a NUC and just remoting in to use Windows whenever you need to.

         1. I don’t need it occasionally; I need it continually. Right now I’m using her computer to trade, but I want to be able to do it while I do other work on my own desk.

4. Which begs the question, why not just buy one? I always had multiple laptops to do my various jobs when I was actively consulting, largely dictated by client needs. Now I have leftovers from that era running some obsolete hardware (I have an expensive to replace 18″ flatbed scanner for which there are no new drivers, for example).

   Anyway, I don’t exactly know what you’re trying to achieve with your setup, or why you don’t just get a $500 or so Windows laptop for your Windows needs. I have a 17″ HP laptop with an attached XP-Pen Artist 22E that I use as a graphics workstation. I had the XP-Pen shipped from Japan, but got the laptop at Staples.

   In the olden days (of 8 years ago), I had a dedicated laptop for each project, some mine (now leftovers) and some provided by the client. The individual projects dictated OS and developer software (and I still have one client laptop they didn’t want back, “just in case”).

   1. Because I hate Windows, and there are very few things that I want to do in it (I need it primarily for trading, because there are no good trading platforms for Linux). I have a two-monitor set up, one of which is Windows and the other is for Linux, which I use for most things.

      1. Are the problems you have with Linux due to also having windows on it? If that is the case, segregating your platforms would protect your important work and your slightly less important work. I wouldn’t want to take any risks considering how frequently problems are popping up.

         You can get a windows desktop pc for not a lot of money, assuming you don’t need a top end gaming GPU, or a laptop if that better suits your needs. Windows isn’t perfect but crippling problems are infrequent.

         Regardless whatever you do, it should include getting more monitors. Dual monitors were nice back in 2003 but 3 is better. I want 4 but I keep spending money on other things. A portrait monitor would be a great addition.

         1. My Linux problems are completely independent of the Windows virtual machine, and the recent one was completely of my own making by not having a proper backup of my failing hard drive (nothing to do with Linux). I want one box, one keyboard, one mouse, and the best way to do that while minimizing my use of Windows for anything I don’t absolutely need Windows for is a virtual machine on the Linux host.

            1. For under $100 you could get multi-device mouse/keyboard but there are no solutions for hating windows. Hopefully you have your new backup system worked out. The time wasted on this has to be a formative experience.

            2. Hopefully you have your new backup system worked out. The time wasted on this has to be a formative experience.

               Scripts are your friend….

5. At one point in my working life, I had a monitor, keyboard, mouse, and KVM switch accessing a group of desktop machines, before I switched to an all-laptop solution.

   Another solution that could at least act as a stand-in is to get a Windows tablet and bluetooth keyboard, I have a NuVision 7-in tablet with Win10 and a small keyboard that, along with a Kindle, I carry in the pockets of my barn jacket when I’m out and about. When I’m home, it sits on my desk next to my writing machine (which is not allowed on-line) to act as a reference point.

   My backup solution is an infrastructure (non-Internet) wifi device that acts as a router for a 2TB hard disk. All my machines can see it, but only well-protected machines can see the wifi router that can see the Internet. When I’m out and about, I carry a thumb drive in my pants pocket (I might lose the barn jacket, but probably not my pants).

6. Hmmm.. I’ve probably got too many machines.
   Office desktop, iPad mini for aviation, one for my wife (that machine’s touchscreen slowly dying) workshop NUC running Win 7 for one program that won’t run in Win 10 (never sees the net), workshop Win 10 desktop for net, two old eeePCs running Win XP (what a great OS), one of which is field data collection( great machine that cost me A$189 ten years ago), another backup eeePC running Win 7 and a couple of Lenovo 7 inch tablets (way better than iPad). Important stuff is on all the Win machines plus external hard drives.

   1. Well, in addition to my 32G Ryzen Linux/Windows box, we have a 10″ dual-boot notebook, an ASUS Android tablet, her 32G Ryzen Windows 10 desktop with two monitors, a 17″ Windows laptop (that I haven’t yet made dual boot), her work laptop, her iPad, and a Kindle Fire, and the two phones. I always have at least one functional computer…

7. I run Win 2000 in a virtual box for several programs that need it. I disabled the internet and networking for the virtual box so I have few worries on vulnerabilities.

   The problem is that my main OS is Win 7 64 bit. It’s a great system, multi monitor, etc, and very fast, but Win 7 is a security issue, plus I can’t run some modern software. I’d also like to have the same OS on my home PC as my laptops, because I’m an idiot who can’t deal well with with differing OS’s.

   Basically, I want a new OS, and plan on building a new home PC (I prefer building my own). Rand’s experiences with Linux scare me, because he has frequent issues while being much more computer literate than I am. I also need quite a few software installs that require Windows. (and in some cases, backward compatibility).

   I’ve so far refused to have anythng to do with Win 10, for either laptops or my home PC. I won’t use an OS that auto-updates, period (I block software that does that, too). For laptops, I’m sure that anyone who’s ever had anything initiate an auto-update on poor hotel WiFi understands what a pain that is, and that’s just one reason. Another is I do not want updates that change the interface at all, or update stuff I don’t use. Same for my home PC. I also can’t have systems (or software) that have to be connected to the internet to work; a lot of the time, I’m running my computers while not connected.

   And, of course, security. Standard Win10 is unacceptable, due to “telemetry” and other spyware (and the fact they won’t let you turn off a lot of this backchannel intrusion is proof it’s nefarious).

   My question is, can Win 10 Enterprise be a solution to these Win10 problems? I’ve searched long and hard for answers, only to get contradictory results. (and another issue; I don’t want any OS that requires connecting to the internet just because I make a hardware change).

   Or, do I need to bite the bullet and go with some Linux flavor (the easiest to get along with, and I don’t care if I have to pay for it), and then run Win 7 and Win 2000 in virtual boxes (for all the stuff that needs it)?

   1. Well, first, my Windows VM has to be on the Internet, because I use it for trading. But since I don’t use it for much else, other than research on financial websites, I don’t worry about vulnerabilities, and I don’t keep any critical data on it (I don’t even let it see data on the host), so the worst case is that I blow it away and reinstall if a trojan somehow gets in.

      I wouldn’t let my problems (some of which are self inflicted–the most recent one certainly was) dissuade you from Linux, but I’ve heard that Ubuntu (or its offshoots) are pretty friendly. I mostly stick with Fedora from inertia and unwillingness to learn a new distribution. I’d research Linux distributions, then play with one (or more) in a virtual machine before making a switch. But it really is ready for the desktop. Here‘s a good guide.

      1. Thank you, Rand – I’ll look into this. Mint and Unbutu sound good to me, but I need to do more reading.

         I can try them on a VM, and if that goes well, I’ll try them on a surplus laptop that I have no objections to doing a clean install on. (It’s 4-core, 16GB ram, so ought to handle the new OS okay – assuming there are drivers for it.)

         BTW, regarding backups, I’ve found it helpful to use a 3rd internal drive to on-the-fly mirror my main drives, plus as a safer backup I use an external drive that has a hardware switch for power (its own switch on my main power switch bar). When I’m not doing a backup to it, it’s powered off – that way it’s safe from ransomware attacks, etc, because software can’t touch it.

         And heh, I sure know what you mean about an unwillingness to learn a new distribution. I’m the same. That’s why I stick with older software if it does the job – I hate having to re-learn how to use it. Same with operating systems.

         Thanks!!

   2. “but Win 7 is a security issue”

      Keep backups. That’s really the cheap easy, and only real effective answer to “security”.

      Walking down the street without a mask is a “security issue”. :-/ Flying on a plane without a full body cavity search under a microwave scanner is a “security issue”.

      Honestly Win7 is fine. For one thing, the sort of hackers that could do buffer overflow injection attacks are elderly geezers. Windows 10 has more backdoors intentionally placed by a malevolent vendor that occasionally decides it wants to nuke your system, delete your files, or “move them to the cloud” without your permission. I’d take hackers any day – all I need to do is pave and reload.

      1. The biggest issue I have with Win 7 is that sooner or later my present system will die, and from the look of it, current motherboards and other hardware are less and less likely to have drivers for Win7. So, eventually, it won’t be possible for me to keep using Win7. There’s also the problem that a lot of current software (such as turbotax, to name just one) requires Win10. So, I’m trying to figure out options beforehand.

         What I definitely won’t be doing is installing Win10 (except perhaps on a VM that can’t connect to the internet) unless I can find a way around the security issues it has (which IMHO vastly exceed Win7’s vulnerabilities). I was hoping that Win10 Enterprise edition might not have all the backdoors/spyware, but, that’s looking doubtful to me at the moment.

         Microsoft has been malicious for a long time, and has gotten even more invasive.

         I’d not heard about Win 10 nuking files or putting stuff on the cloud , but it does not surprise me.

         1. Buy a copy of Win7 and place it on a VM drive. As long as the drive file lasts, and the VM softaware (Vbox/VMWare) is supported by Linux, your “machine” should last.

            The same thing should probably work for Windows 10, which is what I’ll probably do when I upgrade myself.

            1. My copy of Win 7 has a 4-copy license, and I have 2 remaining, so assuming it accepts that, I should be okay to set it up on a VM.

               I think that what you suggest would work great for me overall; I could keep using Win7 in the VM as long as I want.

               I could set up another VM (with no internet access) for Win10 if I need it (such as for tax software that won’t run on Win7).

               Now, I just have to choose a Linux type that I like, so I can make sure it supports the hardware I’ll be shopping for to build the new system.

               Thanks!

8. Sounds like your kernel headers aren’t matching what VirtualBox is expecting. You should have walked through the steps in the last link I sent you to make sure all the pre-requisite steps were addressed You can still do that. And then retry. But it’s too late to try to unregister the VM. You didn’t do that I note and that is NOT the same as just deleting the directory that the old VM was in. But you have now scroded your VBox Install so now you HAVE to rebuild it. If you aren’t interested in my advice I suggest you try the VBox or Fedora forums. Good luck to you.

   1. I have in fact posted at the VB forum. But I don’t understand why if I wipe out the VM directories, and uninstall VB, then reinstall it, I cannot create a new machine. What more could I possibly do for a clean installation?

      1. Your re-install failed. That’s why it isn’t working.

9. I don’t have much useful to contribute about Fedora. I’ve been using Linux Mint (Debian) heavily for the past 3 years, and run a Virtualbox with Windows 7 VM from the machine. Haven’t had problems with it except very occasionally when a path gets messed up.

   I’d make a backup copy of the virtual drive file, since it should contain anything the machine can see. You can recreate the VM setup (CPU config, etc), as long as you have the drive file, and boot it back up.

   One thing that comes up sometimes is that some virtualization flag needs to be set or unset in the BIOS.

   You may have config files leftover in /etc

   You may have installed it to a different prefix location than the default filesystem locations.

   Just throwing ideas at the wall. Sorry to hear about your problems. While this may not help, other than as encouragement that good situations can exist if the problems are debugged: I’ve more or less abandoned Windows as my primary OS, and also enjoy having one “main machine”. The VM means I don’t have to reboot to my windows-drive very often, unless I need a graphics-heavy application like Solidworks. (I can also create more or less total drive-image level backups on my machines from Linux so that I can roll back in the event of a catastrophic failure.)

10. Looks like the setup script is screwing up somehow. The code being compiled expects an environment variable ETHTOOL_GDRVINFO to be set to something. It isn’t, so the compiler is throwing errors. Other than that, no idea.

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