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I have a 64 bit Windows 7 with VirtualBox running the same 64 bit Windows 7 as a guest OS.

When I set a specific date and time, it will always revert to the host OS’s date and time on startup. How can I disable this?

2 Answers 2

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  1. Find the location where your Virtual Machine is stored. You can do this by right clicking on the machine from the list in the VirtualBox Manager and selecting Show in Explorer

Find Machine Source Path

  1. Backup the file called yourVMname.vbox

  2. Open the file in a text editor and navigate to the <ExtraData> element which should contain a list of ExtraDataItem elements

  3. Add the following item to the list: <ExtraDataItem name="VBoxInternal/Devices/VMMDev/0/Config/GetHostTimeDisabled" value="1"/>

  4. The final section should look something like this:

Final Edited VM Configuration

source

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  • 1
    Vbox show me issue with first quotation mark you have used. After I type it manually it worked. Nov 11, 2016 at 13:04
  • 1
    I did it on Mac, it worked. I just replaces VBoxInternal by VBoxInternal2.
    – Anthony
    Apr 24, 2017 at 15:23
  • 2
    VirtualBox should be restarted.
    – Alex78191
    Jul 17, 2017 at 8:27
  • This did not work for me on MacOS:Mojave using Vbox 6.0.6. After editing and saving the .vbox file, starting the VM would revert to the previous state without my changes. The answer by @Triple_Fault did the trick.
    – Z4-tier
    Oct 13, 2019 at 16:14
  • To avoid VBox from restoring changes, close all VirtualBox windows and delete .vbox-prev file, which usually is located together with .vbox file. Mar 26, 2021 at 13:12
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The command to disable time synchronization between host and guest in Virtualbox is:

VBoxManage setextradata "VM name" "VBoxInternal/Devices/VMMDev/0/Config/GetHostTimeDisabled" 1

See the Virtualbox manual, section 9.14, especially 9.14.4.

Note that in a Windows host your command window's default directory must be in the directory where Vboxmanage.exe exists (default: C:\Program Files\Oracle\Virtualbox) or you have to type the full path to Vboxmanage.exe.

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  • Also vagrant reload after running that set command. Jun 11, 2019 at 9:25
  • This is better than modifying the .vbox directly.
    – Ameen
    Feb 26, 2020 at 9:42
  • This worked for me on macOS Catalina
    – Li Jinyao
    Jun 23, 2020 at 5:11
  • On Windows, you can also add your VirtualBox installation directory to your PATH environment variable. This will let you use VBoxManage without needing to be in the installation directory or to use the executable's full path. Jan 19, 2021 at 19:19

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