Windows 7 - Does virtual box write to the disk? Am confused...

Does Virtual box write to the disk or does it contain it within your host operating system?

I have tried to understand it but can someone pls confirm that what it does is that if your OS is windows7 then what happens is that all virtual OS you add are actually processed and executed by NTFS Windows7?

That make sense?

Reason I ask is b/c linux needs ext2/3/4 to work not NTFS so how can that happen?

Thanks

Virtualbox stores the guest OS and all its data in a virtual hard disk which is just a file on your real disk. It runs as any other program would under windows.

OK, so if I install say Ubuntu on the virtual box (hosted on windows7) then the ubuntu program IS written to the disk and kept within its own windows folder?

also - which is the recommended virtual box program? Is it the Oracle version? that is free right?

Yes you are correct. All the ubuntu code is contained within the virtual hard disk file. You can get Virtualbox from here. https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads. Or alternately you might like to try VMPlayer which is similar but may be easier for the beginner. The link is in my signature. It is also free but you need to register to download it.

Hi there

I'm not sure about Virtual Box but there is an option in VMWARE that the virtual machine can be defined as Persistent -- in other words you can work with it as normal but when the session is ended No data is actually written to the virtual machine -- in other words the sate of the machine remains like it was when you first powered it on --- very useful feature for training classes -- you don't have to restore the virtual machine again for the next set of students.

However as far as Guest OS writes are done the HOST does any physical writing to disk so the GUEST file system is irrelevant as far as the HOST is concerned.

As far as the GUEST is aware it's running on a REAL system and is physically writing to the file system even though it's actually the HOST machine that is doing the real I/O.

Cheers
jimbo

In Virtualbox there is are snapshots which provide similar functionality.

Hi there
slight difference here -- a Snapshot is a copy of a Virtual machine taken at a particular instance. You can restore or power on a VM from the snapshot but essentially a snapshot is a COPY of the VM at a particular point in time -- this is useful if you want to show machine states at a particular point(s) in an application's execution or life.

You can have one or several snapshots too (and a group of snapshots is sometimes called a TEAM).

By PERSISTENT you have a SINGLE virtual machine which you work on as normal but at the end of the session no actual data is written to the virtual drives -- everything is handled in memory / temporary files. So the VM is always remains in its initial state - ideal for the next student in the following class.

Cheers
jimbo

Ah I see. Yes very useful in that situation.