4

Is there a Windows GUI tool (or even a collection of "Send to..." scripts) to manage VirtualBox .vdi drives and/or virtual machines?

What I'm looking for is a way to right-click on a drive and clone it without resorting to the command line. A tool that covers other tasks is a plus.

I have a set of self written Nautilus scripts for Ubuntu... However, I dual boot and would like similar functionality in Windows without rewriting them in .bat (teh sux) format.

[EDIT] For those interested here's the nautilus script:

#!/bin/bash
# Author: Chris Nava
# VBoxManage clonevdi

IFS=$'\t\n'

DIRNAME=`dirname $NAUTILUS_SCRIPT_SELECTED_FILE_PATHS`
BASENAME=`basename $NAUTILUS_SCRIPT_SELECTED_FILE_PATHS .vdi`

cd "$DIRNAME"

NEWFILE=`zenity --entry --text="Clone Virtual Drive" --entry-text="$BASENAME"_clone`

if VBoxManage clonevdi "$BASENAME.vdi" "$NEWFILE.vdi"
then
zenity --info --title "Clone Virtual Drive" --text "Cloned $BASENAME.vdi to $NEWFILE.vdi"
exit 0
else
rm "$DIRNAME/$NEWFILE.vdi"
zenity --error --title "Clone Virtual Drive" --text "Cannot clone $DIRNAME/$BASENAME.vdi"
exit 1
fi

And the Windows batch script: (much less robust)

@echo off
"C:\Program Files\Sun\VirtualBox\VBoxManage.exe" clonehd "%1" "%~d1%~p1%~n1_cloned_%date:~-4%%date:~4,2%%date:~7,2%%~x1"
pause

6 Answers 6

3

I'm not aware of any GUI tools that you can use to manage this. You could always install perl or Python, or if you're really hooked on shell, MSYS/Cygwin. I would recommend you give batch files a try though, it would be the cleanest solution, despite its shortcomings.

1
  • No thanks. My primary access to these files is via Windows Explorer so I would like a solution that integrates with that. Adding another shell just makes me need to type more. ;-) Looks like I'm going to need to do some batch scripting for use with "Send To..."
    – Chris Nava
    Jun 3, 2009 at 14:28
1

Check these following 3 links:

1
  • The middle link is broken. Link-only answers are considered "Not An Answer" because when the link moves/dies, the advice is lost. This whole answer should be converted into a comment under the question. Oct 27, 2021 at 0:21
0

I've been using vbox for a while and there is no GUI that I know of..

I did find a few links on VBoxMagage that might be of assistance to you though (they were with me).

UbuntuGeek: How to control virtual machines with VBoxManage

Secrets for controlling VirtualBox from the command line

0

There is a VirtualBox Manager GUI, both for Linux and for Windows version. I use it all the time on my Debian (just running 'virtualbox' opens up the GUI interface). You can see it on screenshots available on main VirtualBox site: http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Screenshots

In that interface you can find a .vdi manager which will let you mount/umount, create new disk images, etc. Besides, those disk images are just plain files in ~/.VirtualBox/ directory, which you can simply copy using your standard system tools.

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  • There's no option to "clone" a .vdi in the virtualbox provided GUI. (Which is ironic because it's the most frequent thing I do to those files.) Copying the files results in conflicts when you try to import them.
    – Chris Nava
    Jun 3, 2009 at 14:18
0

I have created a simple script to clone a VirtualBox machine. It is not GUI but I think it can help you - it can create a clone from any snapshot. See my blog post where you can download the script.

0

There is a gui for VirtualBox. I'm using it whthout any problems. It's called PhpVirtualbox and it can be downloaded here: http://code.google.com/p/phpvirtualbox/

1
  • He wants to manage the disks, not the VMs themselves.
    – M Granja
    Feb 14, 2019 at 18:51

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