Running Windows in Linux: VirtualBox Configuration

[Music] welcome to another video from explaining computers comm this time I'm going to run through the details of setting up a virtual machine so that you can run a guest Windows operating system inside Linux this is something that many of you have asked me to make a video about so let's go and get started right here we are in linux mint which is where we're going to be working in this video although you could be using any x86 based Linux distribution and the software will be using to run our virtual Windows machine is the freely available VirtualBox which is got a website Hirata virtualbox.org now VirtualBox is virtualization software which means it divides a computer's resources between two or more operating systems and this means that to run VirtualBox you need a reasonably powerful computer with at least a dual-core processor and ideally at least 8 gigabytes of RAM because these was also going to be split between two operating systems now if you just want to use VirtualBox to test out another operating system you can do a basic install very easily but if you actually want to work into operating systems at the same time you want to say run Windows programs and use them as well as you your Linux system exchange data between them etc things like that if you want to do that you'll need a more complicated set up and that is what this video is about and so here what we're going to do is to install VirtualBox to download it install the Oracle VirtualBox extension pack to add extra functionality to enable hardware virtualization in our computer's BIOS which is essential if we want to install the 64-bit version of Windows in a virtual machine to install our guest Windows operating system to add the VirtualBox guest additions drivers to this virtual machine to share some folders in the clipboard to allow data exchange between deluxe windows and finally to add the current user to the group VBox users which will allow us to enable USB device support in our guests Windows operating the system so let's start out installing VirtualBox and there's various ways you can do this one way is to go down to the menu and go to the software man to install it that way graphically the benefit of that is it's quick and easy but you won't get the latest version so what I'm going to do here is to use the download link on the screen you can see there go to Linux distributions we'll get the latest version this way we have to pick though with Linux distribution we're using here I'm running Linux Mint and 19 and therefore I need to pick it move on to 18.04 because it's based on that so I'll pick that and it will give us so far the downloaded depth file there so we'll save that file there we are which downloaded so we can now close download browser and I think I've got open here the Downloads folder there it is so we can simply a trick file execute that file and click on install and then put in our password and as area it's finished we won't to reinstall and a hopefully if everything's working we will find down in the menu under I think administration yes there we have a Oracle VirtualBox so we've managed to install the latest version of our virtualization software right Here I am back again and before we go to VirtualBox itself sitting down there and wrote up and do things with it what we're going to do is to download the extension pack from our call for VirtualBox if we go to a back to the VirtualBox website and we go to a downloads you will see down here somewhere I think not too far down this page there we are there's the Oracle of virtual machine VirtualBox extension pack which adds things like USB 2 and USB 3 drive support disk encryption nvme support etc very useful stuff to have so we'll click on all platforms it's the same regardless of what you're using and save the file and there we are that was nice and quick and we now will run up VirtualBox because obviously we need to use the thing so there we all will run it up and it has text which is a little small so I'm just going to make it adjustments we can see things more easily in video there we are that's er slightly better and we're now going to go to a file and go to preferences and we'll go to extensions and we'll click on the little plus arrow there and we'll pick up the pack we've that's just downloaded and press on open and do we want to install it yes we do we'll click on install we have to accept the license I'm sure have to probably scroll down and then accept the license and we need to enter our password into this rather large box and there we are we've now successfully installed the extension pack into VirtualBox I've now rebooted the PC so I can enter it BIOS this is because most modern CPUs are equipped with a hardware virtualization technology which Intel called vt-x and AMD call amd-v activating this technology improves virtual machine performance and you must enable it in your BIOS if you want to run a 64-bit virtual machine in VirtualBox so that we're about to install the 64-bit version of Windows 10 we really need to do this exactly how you turn on hardware virtualization will depend on your computer but here I press the Delete key during boot to enter the BIOS from where I can select advanced BIOS features and virtualization which I can now change from disabled to enabled what we're looking at here is an older legacy BIOS but if we turn to a more modern UEFI we can access the same functionality here by pressing the f7 key to enter the Advanced Mode and going across to advanced and down to an Intel virtualization technology which we can change to enabled and then of course whatever system we're using we'd have to go across to save and exit and that exit saving or changes right we're now going to install a guest Windows operating system and to do this we either have to work from a physical windows DVD and install discs all we have to have an ISO file and so I've come to at this page here from Microsoft I'll give you links in video description which is where you go if you try to download Windows 10 when you're in Linux and here we can simply pick up that additional Windows 10 and we'll confirm on that that and it'll hopefully give us a chance to choose a file we have to tell it our language for me it will be English and confirm and this will hopefully then give us a link to download Windows I'll take the 64-bit edition offer Windows 10 and I could save this file but as you might notice here I've already downloaded this file earlier on since I saw you last it's white point for gigabyte so I got it downloaded again so we'll get rid of that and we'll go to a virtual box which happens to be running here for us already so the next thing we need to do is to create a new virtual machine so we click on new here and we give it a name we'll call it a Windows 10 that seems a reasonably good idea isn't it it's already suggesting a folder it's going to put our virtual machines in which is my home directory called VirtualBox VMs I'm happy with that this is going to be a Windows machine it could be others if you wanted to but clear windows it's guest from a name we'd put in and it's going to be Windows 10 64 bit and again we could pick all sorts of versions of Windows if we wanted to but the defaults normally work very well in VirtualBox so we'll go next on this and we need to allocate some memory you don't allocating it to gigabytes I've got 16 gig on this machine so I'm going to increase that to about say or let's give it Oh let's give it a full half of the memory about err 8 gigabytes and we want to create a virtual hard drive for a virtual machine we'll do that we'll use the VDI option that's absolutely fine and we'll have it dynamically allocated which means space is only used up when it's needed rather than being taken as soon as we create the drive so we'll do next on that and create the machine and there we are we now have a virtual Windows 10 machine that was nice and fast wasn't it so next we need to boot up that machine and the first time you boot it up it will recognize it hasn't got an operating system and ask you to find a startup disk which we can do here so this could be a physical DVD drive if we've got one into the computer I haven't at the moment or I can go there on the end and I'll just make this bigger I've been trying to make the fobs work so you can see things clearly and we'll add a virtual image like that and we'll go to downloads and in here there we are that's what we've just downloaded from Windows or downloaded earlier that's what Windows ISO and we will choose that and hopefully from that we can then start and what will now happen is that VirtualBox will go through a standard install for Windows 10 I've got to the pot my window he's asking for a product key obviously if I had a product key I can enter it here I'm not going to put a product key in here as you might know you don't have to have a product key entered into Windows 10 during the install to have it working so I'll just click on don't have a product key and I'll continue on the install will do a Windows 10 home accept the license we want option two here custom install installing to our unallocated space of our virtual drive and there we are windows is installing and here we are had almost lost the will to live there during that installation but yes we've actually made it into Windows there we are welcome to Windows I think I they do a little bit of a tidying up with it or it's going to cause us all kinds of trouble so I'll get on with that do you know I thought it would install a Windows server that's my test copy of Windows might have been a better idea isn't it anyway I will sort out what Windows is doing and come back to you in the next section right here I am back again Windows seems to have stopped installing things and we're successful in running a virtual machine with Windows 10 in Linux we've got Linux Mint over here but this window is running a Windows 10 but there's still things we could do to improve the experience here because for example if I go to view on the windows window a new full screen you'll see it first of all gives us a message about how we get out of full screen using the host key and ëthe the host key by default in VirtualBox being the right to control key anyway we'll switch anyway and you'll see windows would go fullscreen but Windows itself wouldn't fill the screen and that's because it hasn't got the driver to allow it to do that so let's just go down to the bottom here I'm going to get out of things this way on that little icon there so what I'm not going to do to put all the right device drivers into a virtual machine is to go to devices and insert guest additions CD image and this is basically a virtual CD of drivers for Windows 10 in VirtualBox and it hasn't come up automatically so I'm going to go to the file explorer here and somehow get to this PC must be here somewhere there we are there's our virtual CD and what should we use I'm going to go directly I think to the box Windows editions Andy 64 2 1 a 64-bit system and we hope that the work looks looks hopeful doesn't it and that'll hopefully run yes there we are I'm gonna do it next and it'll install this stuff hopefully that's all going to be done I think that's gonna be fine yes well install stuff we'll trust it and I think Carla manually reboot in a second we'll say we'll just finish on that but that's all been put in so we'll knock about the windows ourself so we'll do a close down the windows well let's shut it down completely it'll shut down and here we still got the VirtualBox recording so let's now boot up our machine again last time we booted this machine it was to install Windows this time we shall have it pre-installed so I hope it'll come up and there we are hopefully I can get into this system I'll get rid of those messages there we are let's put a password in and the windows is hopefully now running with a greater range of drivers so if I do a view and a full-screen mode and switch still isn't coming up full screen as it did oh oh it is I should have spoken not too soon should not there we are it's working so we've now mice to get into full screen windows whilst we're in Linux which is a I think rather impressive isn't it yes we're definitely in Windows up there what would running over normal Windows the exciting stuff so a guest additions has clearly worked for us and to get out of that um go back down to the bottom of the screen I'm going to do that so I could come back into here we are in the Linux or I could knit back into Windows so actually this is going quite well isn't it and as it's now working okay I think I've come out of it again shut it down all shutdown your virtual machines properly and it'll take us back into Linux greetings here I am back again and we're now going to be doing a bit of sharing between our Linux host operating system and our Windows 10 virtual guest operating system which is currently powered off as you can see and we're going to go into its settings either by clicking on settings here or going to machine and settings and there's lots of settings here you can play with an experiment with with VirtualBox has lots of fantastic control I'll leave you to take a look at but particularly under general and advanced you'll find the clipboard which I'm going to enable this bidirectional so we can cut and paste either way I could enable drag-and-drop I never tend to use that and I'm also going to go to shared folders and we're going to add a shared folder up there and let's just make this a bit bigger spring see what's going on and we'll select a folder that select for example or Documents folder in Linux we're going to choose that and we'll have it mounted automatically in Windows that maybe as the Zed Drive said : in earlier versions of the VirtualBox you have to do a little bit more mounting of Windows itself but this should work automatically so we'll just go OK on that and OK on that and now if we run up our Windows machine here we are backing up virtual windows and I'm going to get rid of these messages forever by clicking they don't show again thing on the end there and you'll see I'm running again windows not fullscreen because I find when you're setting things up it's easy not to be fullscreen and the view mode here is actually set to auto resize guest display which is which is rather handy so if we look now in this PC we open that up about adducts to the desktop there we are it's mounted odds there Drive which is documents from Linux so we've actually got access to all the Linux folders in documents in Windows and vice-versa so if you want to save files back and forth that's really really handy so in fact let's just open up let's open up a document that's a sample document there and hopefully that will work for a video a long long long while ago yes Windows has found something to open it in there we are and that works and in theory we can cut and paste between the operating system so it could actually take some text there and copy it in Windows and I think I've got over and then that something running there we are there's a test document in Linux and the proof will be can I paste into there I can that's amazing isn't it now we go back the other way as well we can take some text in that looks and copy and we can put it back into Windows and completely mess up this document by pasting it into that so there we are we've set things up to share files and the clipboard between our Windows virtual machine and a real Linux host machine now the final thing we're going to do is to get USB devices working in our virtual machine and this might appear it's fairly straightforward we you take the machine it's powered off and you can go to settings and you might have noticed earlier there's a USB setting here and basically you add in filters using the little buttons over here to enable different USB devices so for example at the moment I've got a USB Drive plugged into this machine and I should be able to go up here and click on that icon add in a filter which will pick up the characteristics of that device and I can assure you that won't work and I'm sure some of you have messed around in VirtualBox for a long time and found it doesn't work let's get rid of that there I know it isn't going to work and the reason it's not going to work is because we aren't as a user in linux part of the group with permissions to enable USB device support in VirtualBox so what we need to do is to turn off VirtualBox like that and we'll go back down to here where I opened up a terminal and we have to use this terminal command which is a to do to have a right to do this and then use a mod and then it's going to be a - little a big G and V box use it as VirtualBox users and we're going to add in our user name and our user name is here at the front of the command prompt here I'm CJ B so space CJ B and I've had press ENTER on that forgot half turn to my password always have to enter your password and as there we are it's done it and now the next thing we need to do is to reboot the machine and here we are back again in linux and it's picked up on USB drive and we now go back into a VirtualBox administration and VirtualBox isn't there on font settings won't be so good this time but nevermind and we'll go to our powered off Windows 10 machine and go into settings and we'll go down to USB and now we can add a filter I clicked on the Run button showing you what went wrong before but it wouldn't have worked either way you only need to go to is the second one down here and if we click on my second one there you will see here we've now got the jet flash driver plugged in and the other use USB device it on this machine which could be for example a printer but I'll click on the jet flash one there that'll add that in a USB device which can be seen by windows I'll click OK on that and if I now run up the Windows machine and here we are and if we open up this PC and here you will see down here we have our USB Drive so we can access USB devices in a virtual operating system and that is so important as the example I said a second ago it might have been a printer it plugged in you could now go install your windows printer driver here it makes life so much easier so there we are let's celebrate by going back into full screen mode for for windows and I've now shown you all the tips I've used to set up my own configuration where I work in the looks what I run Windows what I need to access various windows software so there we are we're running Windows but if we wish to we can come out of windows and we'll be back in our old friend Linux Mint setting up a Windows virtual machine is for some people a critical aspect of a successful migration to Linux getting all the settings just right and also take a bit of time a bit of messing around and I hope that in that context you've found this video useful but now that's it for another video we've enjoyed you seen a pre-specified like button if you haven't subscribed please subscribe and hope to talk to you again very soon [Music] you

Channel: ExplainingComputers

Views: 188,834

Keywords: VirtualBox, VirtualBox 6.1, Windows virtual machine, Windows in Linux, running Windows software in Linux, Christopher Barnatt, Barnatt, Linux Mint, Guest Additions, VirtualBox guest additions, Virtual Box, Oracle Extension Pack, Oracle Virtual Box, VirtualBox USB support, Virtual Box USB

Id: OWmD8obq4eQ

Length: 21min 7sec (1267 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 02 2020