[vbox-dev] Where have my VMs gone ?

[Klaus Espenlaub]

On 25.02.2015 14:47, Kerry, Richard wrote:
>
> Well done ....
>
> Yes I do have %HOME%, and my VBox VMs are in %HOME%\VirtualBox VMs.
> HOME is C:\Home.
>
> I use some other programs which use it.  Given that I have .VirtualBox within it as well I presume at some time this was automatically created, or there was an option to use it.
>
> Anyway, thanks for the advice.  I'll look at the changelog ...... done that ......
> Presumably it's this one "Settings: on Windows host, do not use environment variable HOME at all, the settings location is derived from the user profile directory"
> I don't quite understand this.  Do you mean that I shouldn't use it, or do you mean VirtualBox doesn't use it any longer ?

VirtualBox doesn't use it any longer. It was never meant to have any 
influence on VirtualBox (on Windows). The result of the change in your 
case is that it didn't find the .VirtualBox\VirtualBox.xml file any more 
which contains the VM registry. Which you manually recreated.

> You mention its use for moving settings - can you clarify what it was used for, or direct me to somewhere that explains it.  It might be useful to know how it is(or isn't) used.

I mentioned the abuse :) On Windows, the .VirtualBox folder was always 
meant to be in the user's profile directory as it doesn't need much 
space. Telling VirtualBox to create VMs in some directory other than the 
default works by changing the machine folder in the global settings (see 
GUI).

Klaus
>
> Appreciatively,
> Richard.
>
>
>
>
> Richard Kerry
> BNCS Engineer, SI SOL Telco & Media Vertical Practice
>
> T: +44 (0)20 3618 2669
> M: +44 (0)7812 325518
> Lync: +44 (0) 20 3618 0778
> Room G300, Stadium House, Wood Lane, London, W12 7TA
> richard.kerry at atos.net
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Klaus Espenlaub [mailto:klaus.espenlaub at oracle.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2015 1:15 PM
> To: vbox-dev at virtualbox.org
> Subject: Re: [vbox-dev] Where have my VMs gone ?
>
> On 25.02.2015 13:41, Kerry, Richard wrote:
>>
>> Sorry, I was taken rather by surprise and alarmed by what had happened.  And I have managed to find the files and manually fix the issue, so it's not quite so urgent, though I would like to know why it happened, and what exactly happened.
>>
>> I upgraded from 4.3.20, I think.  I'm working on Windows 7 Ultimate.
>> I had opened that first (ie VBox Manager), so I'd seen my existing set of VMs, as expected.  I'd not used it for a while and the upgrade dialog appeared.  I selected OK as VBox updates are usually straightforward.  Downloaded the installer and ran it.  No unusual dialogs, though I did have to kill a couple of applications running in the background (eg itunes helper and async notifier and a couple of others).
>>
>> On running up the new version of Manager the window was empty, which was rather alarming !
>> So it had somehow during the update lost track of where all my VM files were.
>
> Sounds like your user account had the environment variable HOME set (which isn't a Windows standard environment variable).
>
> This is mentioned on https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Changelog and we considered it to be a bug fix, as it wasn't ever intended to be used for moving the VirtualBox settings. In your case it seems that you never intended to move the settings elsewhere and got caught by surprise.
>
> Klaus
>
>> With some searching I eventually found the files, and manually added them all.  (Suggestion - allow a folder to be selected and all VMs within it to be added in a single action, rather than only a single .vbox file at a time).
>>
>> So that's what happened.  As I say I have (manually) fixed the issue.  But it would be nice to know what happened, and to be sure it wouldn't happen again, for me or anyone else.
>>
>>
>> Regards,
>> Richard.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Richard Kerry
>> BNCS Engineer, SI SOL Telco & Media Vertical Practice
>>
>> T: +44 (0)20 3618 2669
>> M: +44 (0)7812 325518
>> Lync: +44 (0) 20 3618 0778
>> Room G300, Stadium House, Wood Lane, London, W12 7TA
>> richard.kerry at atos.net
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Frank Mehnert [mailto:frank.mehnert at oracle.com]
>> Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2015 12:16 PM
>> To: vbox-dev at virtualbox.org
>> Subject: Re: [vbox-dev] Where have my VMs gone ?
>>
>> Richard,
>>
>> On Wednesday 25 February 2015 11:44:23 Kerry, Richard wrote:
>>> Alright, where have they moved to ?
>>>
>>> Or where has the default location for searching for them moved to ?
>>>
>>> I’ve just updated to 4.3.22 and the VirtualBox Manager can’t find my VMs.
>>>
>>>
>>> I don’t think there was a warning “installing this update will lose
>>> all existing VMs” so I assume it’s just the location it’s looking in
>>> that has changed.
>>
>> a bit more information would be appreciated. From your description I assume that the VirtualBox Manager does not show any VMs but only an empty window, is that correct?
>>
>> On which host you are working and which was the version of VirtualBox which you upgraded to 4.3.22?
>>
>> Frank
>