Windows VM Install & Setup

Download and install the VirtualBox application for Windows from VirtualBox

Download and install an unzip program for 7 zip files (.7z) from the windows app store if you do not already have one. The Winzip Universal application is one that will work.

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Download the virtual disk image of the VM FStutorial_clone_2.7z image. Please note the compressed size of this file is ~30G and the uncompressed file size will be ~60G. The assumption below is there is enough free disk space in your Downloads folder to accommodate the compressed file.

Open the disk image file with the WinZip application.

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For this application you select the Unzip tab and check the box next to the name of the image to unzip it.

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Then you save the uncompressed disk image file FStutorial_clone_2.vdi to some location, i.e., where you have ~60G free space.

Please not that in the screenshots below the uncompressed disk image file was saved to a new folder "VirtualBox VMs" in the users home directory.

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Open the VirtualBox application and select Machine -> New from the pulldown menu.

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Fill in the parameters to name this new machine. Here it is named Ubuntu_FS_600_700b1_TutorialData but you can name it as you like.

The path to the folder under the users home directory with the disk image, VitrualBox VMs, is specified here as the destination to also save files related to running it.

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Then click the Next button to continue and allocate memory to the VM.

While the VM can run with small amounts of RAM, speed and performance will increase with larger amounts of RAM. However, even if you have more than 16G of RAM on your host machine with more than 8G free to allocate to the VM, the recommendation is to start with no more than 8G allocated to the VM. This is because on some hosts, the VM may fail to initially boot when allocated more than 8G of RAM. If you do not have 8G of RAM free, then you can try running it with smaller amounts.

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Click the Next button after allocating memory.

Select the VM will use an exiting disk image file and click on the folder icon to navigate to the subdirectory with the file FStutorial_clone_2.vdi

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You should see something like this when navigating to the file,

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Select "open" after locating the file.

VirtualBox will then show you info about the disk image, noting that this "storage device" is not yet attached to the VM for use.

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Select "choose" to attach the disk image file to the VM. VirtualBox will then bring you back to the previous menu where you selected to use an existing virtual hard disk - showing the info for the now attached disk image file.

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Note that the size listed for the disk image is not listed as 60GB but 107GB. Since this is a dynamic (not fixed size) VM, this means the maximum size the VM (disk image file on the host system) can grow to is 107GB. Or, since the image is initially 60GB, then 107 - 60 = 40GB of empty storage are initially available inside the virtual machine to use for work, data, further installation of packages, etc.