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Is it possible to use the same virtual machine in VirtualBox and also in VMware without losing any data?

I don't need to use them "at the same time" but rather have the choice to lauch the virtual machine with either solutions for different purposes and use cases. Like today I want to work with wireless stuff, so I choose VMware, then I want to make a snapshot so I use VB. Is this possible?

I have a VMDK virtual machine, created using VirtualBox.

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    In theory yes but I've tried this going from VMware Player into vBox and I corrupted the files. The system failed to boot in both virtualizers. I highly recommend making a complete copy of your virtual machine before attempting this.
    – MonkeyZeus
    Commented Dec 19, 2014 at 15:51
  • Which guest OS? Linux shouldn't care, with Windows it's not worth trying, I think.
    – davidbaumann
    Commented Dec 19, 2014 at 16:52
  • What's that special purpose?
    – davidbaumann
    Commented Dec 19, 2014 at 16:52

2 Answers 2

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Yes, and no.

Yes, the VMDK-disk image can be understood by both ESXi and VirtualBox.

No, the complete machine, as in the XML-files that specify what virtual hardware the guest is to be presented and other metadata, cannot be understood by both ESXi and VirtualBox. Also, snapshots will make it impossible to transfer the disk-images from one to the other in a consistent state.

In short, you should be able to transfer a VMDK-disk image without snapshots from one to the other and attach it to a virtual machine. A windows XP guest will not boot after this but Linux and Windows 7++ will most likely survive.

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  • Thanks. This seems explanatory. Funny thing though, I tried to boot the same VMDK created by VirtualBox on Linux, on a VirtualBox on Windows 8, yet it acted all funny and stopped booting all together on Windows. Went back on Linux and had to delete some changes that were made. Not sure what they were, but it now works again on Linux. I won't be trying anything funny anymore with this machine. I'll create another test machine if I could manage to make more space on my HDD.
    – Mars
    Commented Dec 23, 2014 at 15:31
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You can not use the same virtual file to boot in both Exsi server and virtual box since this might corrupt the files and wont work as you expected.But you can create virtual machines using ovf and ova formats and both will react as different instance where the changes won't be committed/synced in between the virtual machines.

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    Are you sure? Have you tried this, or have a source link? (Just to choose your answer. I can't test it myself as I don't have enough space to clone my VM).
    – Mars
    Commented Dec 19, 2014 at 16:20

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