Hyperandy's Blog

Typically in order to open a Virtual Machine (VM) on Ubuntu using Virtual Box you have to open your Virtual Box main console choose the OS and click on Start. This is not a difficult task but becomes cumbersome when using an OS in a VM on a normal basis. I use a Windows XP VM for work (not daily) but enough I would like to just click a shortcut to open it.

In here I will show you how to add the item to your top Panel, to add it to your Applications Menu just right click Applications –>Choose “Edit Menus” –> select the Menu you want the short cut to show under and click “+ New Item” and follow the same steps below. Also you can add the shortcut directly to your desktop by right clicking and choosing “Create Launcher…” again following the steps below.

–please let me know if I need to update this post with screen shots to help you.

To Create the Shortcut.

First, right click your Panel and Choose “Add to Panel…”:

In the Add to Panel Menu select Custom Application Launcher:

You will see a Create Launcher menu appear and here is where you will type in your VM shortcut, you need to specify a Name and the Command (the comment is optional):

The command you will use is VBoxManage startvm Windows\ 7\ RC , in my example I am using it to start Windows 7 you will need to make yours point to your *.vdi for example my XP Virtual Machine is XP.vdi so I would type VBoxManage startvm XP making sure to leave off the .vdi if you have spaces in the name of your *.vdi, as I do, you will also need to use escapes. My Windows 7 VM’s hard disk is Windows 7 RC.vdi so I must type Windows\ 7\ RC (this is typical of Linux, it is also CaSe SenSaTiVE!!!). See the end of this post for screen-shot of where to locate your *.vdi.

(Optional but recommended) Update your shortcut Icon by clicking on the platform with springs:

This will open you “Browser icons” window, here is where you select an Icon that best fits your Application. I actually downloaded a Windows logo from somewhere on-line with windows icons then browsed to where I put it and clicked “OK”. (I put the icon into my .icon folder in my home directory for later use)

You are now finished with the Launcher (a.k.a Shortcut), just click “OK”:

If you placed it on your Panel it should look like this (of course with your own icon):

Your done! Now click on it to test it out and you should see your VM booting up, as you may have noticed I have 2 Windows icons on my Panel one is Windows XP and one is Windows 7:

~Now bask in the glory of a Proprietary OS running on your beautiful open source goodness~

Hope this helps. Please share this with someone if you find it helpful!

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NOTE: To Find the name of you *.vdi look at your Virtual Machine main console, it will be listed under Hard Disks: