Running a Hyper-V VHD file on Virtual Box

We set-up a hyper-v based server in our office here in Singapore.
From time to time, we do get our free-lancers to manage and configure patches etc-etc-etc.


There is this one case where our dear Bangladeshi partner requires access to the Virtual Machine and for weird reasons, need the entire VHD file to do the necessary configuration.

Well, the overall VHD is 40GB, and it'll take days to get it across the WAN lines even with fiber.
So, we decided to ship it in a 64GB Thumbdrive so that it can be sent over quickly.

My colleague was concerned that it might not run properly once it's sent over, as such, she wanted me to verify if the VHD file and the OS is valid.

My quickest way of verifying the set-up would be to use the Virtual Box, and in this case, a VirtualBox Ver 5.0.6r103037

I simply created a VM, set it to Windows Server 2008r2, I did disable the Audio drivers, set the LAN to NAT... and without much thinking, left the processor settings and disk settings as they are.

Windows did not boot. Blue-screen Error with 0x00000007B

Upon google-ing, I realized it's related to the disk controller -
Proceeded to change the Disk from SATA with AHCI mode to IDE with PIIX4 mode.

That solved the problem Immediately and Windows boot.

I wanted better performance on the VM, as such, I decided to change the following configuration on the:
1) motherboard - unticked the ICH9 and enable I/O APIC
2) acceleration - Paravirtualization Interface (Hyper-V), maintained VT-X and Nested Paging

Done!

The Virtual Machine should be happily making its way to Bangladesh now....

Converting a local old Machine to a Virtual Box compatible VM (VHD)

Client told me that they need to change PC, but has an old Accpac 4.0 that need to run only on XP. Plus without a valid maintenance contract, the vendor wants to charge them about 100bucks just to install the application. How? Need to change PC but don't want to spend too much money.

This is a step-by-step guide in how to virtualize a Windows XP or Windows 7 into a virtual machine so that users can run the Windows Virtual machine in Virtual Box. The steps are very important or you might possibly run into problems.

Tools needed:

1) USB Ext Disk 500GB

2) Disk2VHD (latest edition), i think v 1.4

3) Virtual Box 4.22

4) plenty of time

Phase 1 - virtualize the current machine

a) just run the disk2vhd

b) virtualize to a USB disk instead of local disk or D drive. it's safer and better

c) ensure that no running processes are in the system. close all running programs

d) ensure that all windows xp and 7 patches are installed and system is just restarted before the program is run.

e) proceed with the virtualizing to VHD format

 

Phase 2 - install virtualbox onto the new system

a) proceed with default installation and follow all steps

b) no special configuration is needed for virtual box

Phase 3 - Setup VHD and Virtualbox

this is complicated, pls follow carefully:

a) make network card to be bridged onto the physical network adapter

b) configure VM name carefully with the Upper cap and lower cap accordingly when creating a new VM.

c) set ram size to 512mb, and leave everything as default

d) create shortcut of the VM to the desktop for ease of access

e) when closing the VM, set to save the state

f) if there's a problem with auto-restarts all the time, do note to delete this file in c:\windows\system32\drivers\intelppm.sys, just delete that file in SAFE MODE of the VM, and restart. should solve the problem. happened to me several times when setting up the Windows XP VM on different machines, especially when I transfer the VM from 1 machine to another.

g) configure PC name to be (host pc name)-xp or (host pc name)-vm. Eg, mcsfin-pc01-xp

h) install the virtual box add-on tool VM add-on. you must configure the ISO image to be mounted. this is important for the sync of video and mouse

I think this is it! Everything should work as per norm. Will update again if there's things to add.