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I am planning on installing the latest version of VirtualBox on my Windows 7 machine. I made about 6 VMs using Workstation 7.0 and want to import these into VBox.

What is the best way to go about this? I've seen various articles but they don't describe the versions used, and for the latest VBox version, the process might be shorter/more reliable etc.

Also, do I need to do a lot of configuration for getting my internet working on a guest? VMware Workstation 7.0 just requires the selection of network mode and that is it.

3 Answers 3

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I want to add an important tip when doing the VMware to VBox transition: don't forget to uninstall the VMware tools first. It could be harmful for your VMs to be booted up with the tools of the other hypervisor.

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  • As I discovered, VMWare Tools will refuse to uninstall unless running under VMWare as a guest. You must remove them before switching.
    – CarlF
    Jan 29, 2010 at 23:05
  • Yep, thats true. See my answer.
    – djangofan
    May 16, 2011 at 16:22
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The latest version of Virtualbox 4.04 doesn't allow you to directly add a VMWare disk in the Virtual Disk Manager, like it used to in Virtual box 2.x .

To get it to work, you need to create a new VirtualBox image and then, choose "use existing disk" and use the little yellow folder icon/button to browse for the .vmdk and choose it.

Some caveats:
  1.  From within VMWare, Uninstall VMWare tools before you do this. 
 Otherwise your in for a world of hurt trying to manually uninstall it and
Windows XP will deny detecting the network hardware in the VirtualBox
environment.  Also, download the Intel network card driver package to
your VM (required by VirtualBox) before you move it away from VMWare.
 2.  Make sure that you choose the right motherboard chipset  and # of
processors in your VirtualBox config,  otherwise the disk might not boot.
 3.  Be careful to choose the right .vmdk image file or else it might seem
like the disk doesn't want to mount while within the wizard.  The smaller of 
the 2 files is probably the one you want, as that one seems to be a map to 
the larger .vmdk file.

Intel Drivers: http://www.intel.com/support/network/sb/cs-006103.htm

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I believe that you need to create a new VM, and then attach the appropriate .vhd disk to the VM. As for the VBox networking, if you want your VMs on the same subnet as your host, configure them for "bridged" networking, otherwise you can use NAT for separate subnetting.

Lastly, since you are working with VMWare VMs, you may want to use VMWare Player with them instead of VBox. It won't give you snapshots & some less advanced networking, but it is VMWare. And the latest version of player also lets you create new VMs.

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