Install VirtualBox in USB and run the operating system

What if we could choose to install and bring our chosen operating system into a USB drive?

Network Administration - As we move into 2010, operating systems are not software that only resides on computers. The Google chrome operating system has been launched and marked a new era in the cloud operating system era. However, sometimes the cloud can show some difficulty in maintaining, especially when you prefer to use USB drives to perform everyday tasks with your computer, perform backups, transfer files and Working in many computers like home, office or maybe some other work locations.

Sometimes you need an operating system that can be portable, so you can run it from your external drive without the operating system of your computer. We introduced you to Mojopack in a previous article, allowing you to bring your operating system into a USB drive. However, Mojopack is not suitable for any operating system that depends on the server where you will use it.

What if we could choose to install and bring our chosen operating system into a USB drive?

Answer: Virtualbox can create portable capabilities. The idea here is to install Virtualbox in a USB drive and use it to install another operating system. With this portable virtual drive, you can use this system in any computer you want.

How to make VirtualBox portable

1. To install Virtualbox on a USB drive, go to vbox and download page here (957 Kb). Select version 3.0 version as shown below.

Install VirtualBox in USB and run the operating system Picture 1

2. Run the installation, then the program will ask you to select a location to extract the files. Extract all files to your USB drive.

Install VirtualBox in USB and run the operating system Picture 2

3. Installation will extract all the files required to install the virtualbox on your USB. Now open the 'Portable-Virtualbox' folder from the external drive and double-click the installation file as shown in the figure below.

Install VirtualBox in USB and run the operating system Picture 3

4. Then you will see what is shown in the picture below.

Install VirtualBox in USB and run the operating system Picture 4

5. Select the ' Extract the files for a 32 bit system ' check box and ' Extract the files for a 64 bit system '. You can also compress files to save space in your external drive.

6. Then. Click the ' Download Installation file for Virtualbox ' button.

7. Soon, you will see the application starts downloading the installation files needed to install the portable Virtualbox. Wait for the download process to finish. You will see a message appear in the middle of the screen and in the system tray.

Install VirtualBox in USB and run the operating system Picture 5

8. The program takes some time to download Virtualbox files. After the download process has finished, you will see a prompt as shown in the image below.

Install VirtualBox in USB and run the operating system Picture 6

9. Open your external drive again and now you will see a new icon called 'Virtual Box' (not to be confused with the Portable Virtualbox icon). Double click on it and you will see the usual Virtualbox wizard.

Install VirtualBox in USB and run the operating system Picture 7

Complete the wizard, and then you have completed the portable Virtualbox installation in the external drive.

Install the portable operating system in an external drive

Now Virtualbox is located on your external drive, you can easily create a virtual drive and install any operating system such as Windows XP, Windows Vista, Linux, . Launch the virtualBox program, you can create one virtual drive. Save this hard drive in your external drive because you will use it from your USB drive. You can refer to the article 'Running Android on a computer using Virtualbox, or Share Virtualbox with multiple operating systems' to install a new operating system with Virtualbox.

When you are done installing the operating system with Virtualbox, you can bring your operating system into this external drive and use it on multiple computers.

Advantages

There are many advantages to using a portable Virtualbox and running an operating system inside it. The biggest advantage is that you can run the operating system on any computer that has not installed virtualbox. Another advantage is to keep your hard drive completely free from virtual drives or you can even copy virtual disks from one computer to another.