This has been happening several times a day for the last few days and I have no idea why:
After some time of using a VM, it disappears and goes into to state ‘Aborted’. Restarting is as if the machine crashed and I get the recover screen.
This is under OpenSUSE 12.1 64-bit KDE with all updates applied and VirtualBox 4.1.4_OSE r74291 (From the about box). I do not know how to
tell if VirtualBox or a related component was updated but this is the production OpenSUSE 12.1.
The VM in question is a Windows 7 64-bit. It was working without problems before this week on the same system. I reverted to an old snapshot
in case it was a change in the VM but it still gets ‘Aborted’.
Any ideas how to fix this? If there is any more info needed to diagnose, please ask.
Let me say that while I have had great success running openSUSE clear up to and including 12.1 in 64 bit format as a guest in VirtualBox running on a openSUSE 11.4 and 12.1 host, I have not had great success running Windows 7 64 bit mainly due to graphic support issues. It is my humble opinion you will do much better with the combination of openSUSE 12.1 Host while using a Windows 7 32 bit guest. I have had several Windows 7 sessions blow up in 64 bit format and you need a lot of memory for such a setup as well. Except that you just want to use a 64 bit Windows 7 guest, do you actually have a real need for such a setup? How much memory are you giving the 64 bit Windows 7 guest? What kind of graphics setup were you trying to use in Windows 7?
I’ve seen this often with various Windows guests on various Linux hosts. Not sure why and how it happens, but it’s usually not fatal. In most cases, Windows should start normally. Sometimes it does a filsesystem check and then start. But after all, it’s windows … No matter how you virtualize ****, it’s still ****.
Unless you really need a 64-bit system for some reason, there is no benefit in using 64bit as guest in a virtual machine. It just needs more RAM because 64bit instructions are twice as big.
No, I did not absolutely need the client to be 64-bits. I have access to 32-bit versions of all the apps I use. The only thing is my Windows 7 license is 64-bits. How can I tell for sure if the problem is due to 64-bits? I’d hate to spend on a 32-bit license for no reason!
Sadly, I worked with 64-bit Windows VMs for years without any problem under Parallels. Only they do not support OpenSUSE 12.1 which is why I went with VirtualBox. If they get their act together I would probably pay the upgrade. The VMs worked perfectly (never had a Wndows VM crash), were faster and better integrated with Parallels.
The graphic setup is a host with an ATI RADEON HD and the Windows VM work with the standard (non-experimental) guest additions that support Direct 3D. It gets 4 GB of RAM to work with.
No, it is not due to 64-bits. At least, all I can say is that I see aborted vms from time to time and we only use 32bits vms. It is due to Windows not beeing able to recover after the vm was powered off too early or Windows took too long to shut down. The fact that there are more inconveniences than advantages in using 64bit vms was just an aside.
I must add though that 32 bit versions of Windows 7 and Windows Vista seem to work better with 3D graphics being enabled and while Windows can blow up at any time, VM or not, I have had good success with 32 bit over 64 when trying to get full 3D graphic support. Further, I can’t think of a thing that I am missing by using 32 bit. If you can handle just basic graphic support, your problem may not be 64 bit related, but if you are trying to get full 3D support, I suggest you give at least one 32 bit copy a try. It just depends on how bad you need Windows to work in VirtualBox.
On 2011-12-23 02:36, idanan wrote:
> Sadly, I worked with 64-bit Windows VMs for years without any problem
> under Parallels. Only they do not support OpenSUSE 12.1 which is why I
> went with VirtualBox.
You can also try vmware. The player version is “gratis”.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)
You can also try vmware. The player version is “gratis”.
Indeed I use VMWare for another client because the VMs are given to me.
Only thing is that, in this situation, I need to create VMs, so a free player wont be enough unless
it can play either my VirtualBox or my Parallels VMs. Would you know a way to do that?
>> You can also try vmware. The player version is “gratis”.
>
> Indeed I use VMWare for another client because the VMs are given to me.
>
> Only thing is that, in this situation, I need to create VMs, so a free
> player wont be enough unless it can play either my VirtualBox or my
> Parallels VMs. Would you know a way to do that?
VMware Player can be used to create VMs. You also can export VMs from it
using the free VMware Converter to OVF/OVA format and import them into
VirtualBox.