Tag: app-subdomain-redirection:virtualbox

VirtualBox is an excellent free solution if you need to run Windows on your Mac. However, one common problem is that over time, you run out of disk space. If you receive the “Low Disk Space” warning in Windows, your only option is to either delete files and applications or resize the amount of hard drive space you allow Windows to use on your Mac.

Fortunately, you can resize the disk space in VirtualBox, although it is a bit tricky. Here’s how to resize a Windows hard drive in VirtualBox on your Mac.

Continue reading “How to resize disk space in VirtualBox”

We’ve already written about virtual machines on this blog a couple of times, explaining how easy they’re to use and how handy they come in when testing new operating systems or new software. One of our favorite virtual machine solutions, VirtualBox, has recently been updated to version 3.0.6 which, among other new features, includes now an enhanced way to deal with system snapshots and share them across different computers.

What is a snapshot? It’s similar to the Restoration Point functionality in Windows. VirtualBox snapshots save your current virtual machine as is, with all the software you’ve installed so far, as well as files and personal configuration options. You can create as many snapshots as you need for each virtual machine, and revert the system to any of them at any point. So i, for example, you saved a snapshot just after installing the OS, you can go back to it anytime and have a clean, newly installed system in two minutes and without having to go through the pain of reinstallation.

To create a snapshot in VirtualBox, all you have to do is click on the Machine menu in your virtual machine and select Take Snapshot. You’ll be asked to enter a name and a description for the snapshot, so that you can distinguish between different snapshots more easily. Then click on OK and you’re done!

To revert your current machine to a previous snapshot, open VirtualBox, select your virtual machine and click on the Snapshots tab. Right click on the Current State icon and select Revert to Current Snapshot, which will bring the virtual machine back to the latest snapshot you took. If you want to revert the system to an earlier state (for example, the first snapshot you took) you can do so by discarding all other snapshots, so that the first one you took goes immediately before the Current State icon. Continue reading “How to: Create and manage snapshots in VirtualBox”

Being a software reviewer means I’m always willing to test new apps, check out innovative web services or even have a look at the latest version of an operating system. If you’re anything like me – and don’t want to ruin your computer in six months with all those software experiments – you should use a virtual machine.

Virtual machines can run on your system as separate computers, with their own hard drive, operating system and file structure. Therefore you can test anything you like without compromising your actual system. It’s the perfect sandbox for beta versions, new operating systems or software apps you want to try out before installing them definitively on your PC.

A few months ago I wrote a post about the two most popular virtual machine solutions (VMware vs VirtualBox) but today I’m going to focus on the latter, and explain how to install and run a new operating system in VirtualBox with an ISO file. This may be the best way to take your first steps in Linux, for example.

The first step is obviously downloading the ISO file with the operating system you want to try out. There are many sources from which you can obtain them. You only need to be a bit patient because these image files are usually massive and can take a long time to complete downloading.

1. Once you’ve got the ISO image file of the OS you want to test, launch VirtualBox and click on New.

Continue reading “How to: install a new operating system on VirtualBox”