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On Fri, Sep 12, 2008 at 04:26:48PM -0300, Fernando Cassia wrote:
> 3. Clicked on "New machine"
> 4. Gave it a name (copy/paste from xml file provided)
> 5.  also set the RAM size (copied from XML file, "145 MB" )
> 6. Selected on the drop-down OS type "other/unknown"
> 7. In the "Virtual hard disk" setup screen I clicked on the "Existing"
> button
> 8. I got a list of vdi files already configured on my virtualbox, I clicked
> on "ADD"
> 9. I maneuvered with the file requester until I found the "ReactOS
> 0.3.3.b.vdi" file, clicked on it and selected "Open"
> 10. From the list of known vdi files I highlighted ReactOS 0.3.3.b.vdi, and
> clicked in "select"
> 11. The VM was ready, I ran it and... ReactOS started!

I have to preface my comments by saying that I've never downloaded any
of the downloadable vms mentioned in this thread. However, I did want
to comment on the above. If the downloadable vms include a .xml file,
you're taking the long way when creating the vm. I don't use the gui,
so I can only describe importing a created vm from the
command-line. I've only done this on a windows host, so can't speak
for other hosts, though this procedure should work on other hosts as
well I think.

1. Place the xml file where ever vbox expects to find xml files on your
system. The default in windows is c:\documents and
settings\user\.virtualbox\machines\vm_name.

2. Place the vdi file where ever vbox expects to find vdi files on
your system. I've changed this in my case, so don't remember what the
default is, though I think it is the same as step 1 above.

3. To register the vm, I type the following at the windows
   command-prompt:

vboxmanage registervm machines\vm_name\vm_name.xml

Note that section 8.3 of the manual doesn't give the syntax, and I'm
not booted into windows now, so can't verify it by running
vboxmanage.exe. It's close enough though, (if not actually correct), and 
running vboxmanage
registervm by itself should tell you what the syntax is. Like section
8.3 of the manual says, in order for this to work, the vdi has to be
detached from the machine, and I run vboxmanage unregistervm for good
measure, before copying the .xml file. If these conditions aren't
met, I can indeed say from personal experience that you won't be able
to use registervm successfully, unless you modify the xml by hand I
suppose, (something I haven't done myself). Also, note that you can't
do:

cd machines\vm_name

and run:

vboxmanage registervm vm_name.xml

from there, it won't work.

4. Now, we register the vdi file:

vboxmanage registerimage disk vm_name.vdi
Notice that you don't need to specify a path here, just the vdi file.

5. Now, attach the vdi to the vm:

vboxmanage modifyvm vm_name -hda vm_name.vdi

You're done at this point. I usually run vboxmanage showvminfo
vm_name, to make sure everything is as I expect, though you could
start the vm at this point without having to do anything else.

One more thing to note about unregistering vms, I've found in
1.5.x at least, that you need to also remove any machine-specific
shared folders. If you don't, unregistervm will work just fine, but
registervm won't, unless you edit the .xml file by hand, something
which I have done in this case. Also, when I unregister a vm for
backup, before doing so, I run:

vboxmanage showvminfo vm_name >vm_name.txt

This way, if I can't register the .xml file for some reason, I can
easily read the .txt file to create the vm manually, rather than
having to read through a bunch of xml tags to get the info I want. One
more thing I just thought of. When unregistering the vm, I
unregisterimage disk vm_vdi as well, after detaching it from the
vm. Whether this step is necessary or not, I don't know, but I do it
anyway. If you can't register a vdi for some reason, you can always
use clonevdi to create a new image, which you should then be able to
register with no problems.

Ok, I think that pretty much describes how I go about this. Hth.

Greg


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