Building new Windows XP Guest

Currently I have the need to build a new Windows XP Guest in VirtualBox.  So I figure that I want the latest and greatest so that I wont have to keep upgrading it. 

On the OS side, I want it to be pre-installed with SP3, and possibly some or all of the patches

On the Virtual Hardware side I want for the Hard drive to be SATA, not IDE, and for the bridge to be ICH9, not PXII3.

My ultimate goal is for it to be point and shoot, no installing as IDE / PXII3 and convert, but to choose SATA / ICH9 straight from the start.  Also want to do it without any other tools like nlite.  Starting work today, lets see where this gets us

Installng Zabbix appliance into Virtualbox with VMDK to VDI conversion

     OK, I know the title is a little long, but it is descriptive. Yesterday I stumbled across the Zabbix appliance and wanted to see what it could do.
     Well I am still checking out Zabbix, but I wanted to see if I could run the Zabbix appliance using VirtualBox's native disk format VDI instead of the originally provided VMDK virtual disk.

     First off adding the VMDK into VirtualBox is easy as cake

1. Download the appliance from www.zabbix.com
2. Extract the VMDK and VMX files.
3. By looking at the VMX file, you notice the parameters that are pertinent to create
1. OS: Linux
2. Version: OpenSUSE
3. Memory: 512MB
4. Storage Controller: SATA
5. Network Attached Adapter: Bridged
6. Adapter type Intel PRO/1000 MT
4. Copy the VMDK to where you keep your VDI files, go to the Virtual Media Manager and add the disk to the list, then attach the disk to the SATA adapter and away you go.  

    For me it started up fine the first time without any problems.
    Now for the fun part; converting the file to VDI


    Use the following command:

         vboxmanage.exe clonehd \file.vmdk zabbix.vdi --format vdi

   Now you just go to the Virtual Media Manager and attach the VDI and away you go.  The one thing that I did learn is that you need to convert the VMDK to a VDI before you start up the machine the first time.  So if you did the test with at the top of the article, just delete it and pull a new copy of the VMDK from the archive you download.

Interesting new features for VirtualBox 3.2.0

Hey, I was looking at the new VirtualBox, and it has some really new features. They are memory ballooning, memory page de-duplication, and new IO sub-system.

It looks like Sun is really upgrading this product for prime time!


http://www.ubuntugeek.com/virtualbox-3-2-released-and-ubuntu-installation-instructions-included.html#more-5719
http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Changelog