I think that it was you mentioning that virtual disks are in ~/.Virtual box directory.
Regardless, this is no longer the case for many years. I have a feeling that it has changed around v5. These days vBox stores all VM related files under: ~/VirtualBox\ VMs directory Configuration files are in: ~/.config/Virtual box directory Being annoyed is about the only thing one can do about it beside creating a soft link and pretending that nothing has changed. AFAIK, for a while, vBox respected the old ~/.Virtual box directory when it encountered it. Not sure how it behaves these days. Hope that helps to understand things, Tomas PS: I do not really mind that they changed the dir name, but why having a space in the dir name is beyond me. Probably some sort of masochism/sadism or little egoistic nut in the Linux/Solaris gearbox.... On Sun, Jan 26, 2020, 16:20 John Jason Jordan <[email protected]> wrote: > During the recent discussion here about slow video started by Dick, it > was mentioned that VirtualBox keeps the .vdi files in the > ~/.VirtualBox/VDI folder, therefore to save your machines all you have > to do is back up that folder before engaging in upgrades, then replace > it afterwards. > > Well, after that discussion I suddenly discovered the folder > ~/VirtualBox VMs, and inside was a .vdi file for a virtual machine that > I created a couple years ago. At that time I had virtual machines for > Windows 2000 and Windows XP, and their .vdi files were still in > ~/.VirtualBox/VDI. > > This annoyed me, so I started poking around. I began by moving the > new .vdi file to ~/.VirtualBox/VDI, then editing its settings in > VirtualBox to reflect the change, and then I renamed the VirtualBox > VMs folder. This worked, except as soon as I shut down the new machine > I discovered that the VirtualBox VMs folder had been recreated and the > new machine's .vdi file had been copied into it. > > Now I was getting angry. I tried various other things, but I couldn't > stop VB from recreating that folder. Eventually I learned that > somewhere along the line Oracle changed the rules. Now, when you create > a new machine, the default location for it is in ~/VirtualBox VMs. You > can change the location, but apparently I had not noticed the default > setting when I installed the new machine, so that's where VB created > the .vdi file. And once VB thinks that's where the .vdi file belongs, > it's going to keep recreating the folder and copying the .vdi file to > it. > > Eventually I solved the problem. I still had the .vdi file in > ~/.VirtualBox/VDI, so I removed the entry for the new machine from the > main window, then 'recreated' the machine, this time choosing 'use an > existing .vdi image.' After deleting the ~/VirtualBox VMs folder yet > again, I launched the recreated machine, and now VB no longer recreates > the unnecessary folder. > > Why did I go to all this trouble? Because I like to be able to copy my > ~/.VirtualBox folder and know that I have everything. More importantly, > I recently stated here that one could do that and know that all the > virtual machines were backed up. I must now say that I was possibly > wrong. Depending on how long ago you created your virtual machines some > of them may be in ~/VirtualBox VMs. > > And a pox on Oracle for making things more complicated with no benefit > at all. > _______________________________________________ > PLUG mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug > _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
