Latest update prompts for admin privileges after install. By VirtualBox to download and install the. To install kernel drivers and cannot run without. I have a Windows VM Id like to use at work. Problem is I am not an admin, and being new on the job I dont want to ask yet for admin rights. Cant install VirtualBox or VMWare, so Ive been trying to use QEMU again (I used it a few years ago with a Win 7 VM) but it just doesnt seem to want to start.
As we walk in the year 2010, Operating systems are not machine specific anymore. Google chrome OS has launched which marks a new era in the beginning of cloud based Operating system. But sometimes the cloud can be a little difficult to maintain, especially when you prefer using a USB stick for doing your day to day tasks with the computer, taking backups, moving files and working in multiple computers like in Office, home or may be some other place.
Thus sometimes you may need an operating system that would be portable, so that you can run it from your removable drive and from any computer. We have covered Mojopack earlier, which lets you carry a “self made system environment” in your USB drive. But Mojopack is not any operating system and it depends upon the host computer where you would be using it.
What if we could install and carry an operating system of our choice from the USB drive?
The answer: Virtual box made portable. The idea here is to install Virtualbox in your USB drive and use it to install a guest operating system. With this portable virtual disk, you can use this system in any computer you want.
How to Make VirtualBox Portable
1. To install Virtualbox in your removable drive, go to vbox and download the package (957 Kb). Choose the version 3.0 as shown below.
2. Run the set up and it will ask you for a location to unzip the files. Extract all the files to your USB drive.
3. The setup will extract all the files required to set up virtualbox in your USB drive. Now open the “Portable-Virtualbox” folder from the removable drive and double click the set up file as shown below.
Install Virtualbox Without Admin Rights
4. Now you will be shown something like this
5. Select the checkboxes “Extract the files for a 32 bit system” and “Extract the files for a 64 bit system“. You can also choose to compress the files to save some precious space in your removable drive.
6. That’s it. Click the “Download Installation file for Virtualbox” button.
7. Immediately after that, you will see that the application has started downloading the setup files required to install portable Virtualbox. Wait for the download to finish. You will see a notification right in the middle of the screen and also in the system tray.
8. It would take some time to download the Virtualbox files. After the download is over, you will see a prompt as shown below
9. Now open your removable drive again and you would see a new icon named as “Virtual Box” (not to be confused with Portable Virtualbox icon). Double click it and you will see the usual Virtualbox wizard.
Complete the wizard and you are done with the installation part of portable Virtualbox in the removable drive.
Install a Portable Operating System in your Removable Drive
Now that Virtualbox is in your removable drive, you can easily create a virtual hard disk and install any operating system such as Windows XP, Windows Vista, Linux etc. Start the virtual Box program and you can create a virtual hard disk. Save this hard disk in your removable drive as you would be using it from the USB drive only. Now here are some useful guides on how to install a new operating system with Virtualbox:
Once you are done with the installation part you can carry the Operating system in the removable drive and use it on multiple computers. That concludes the tutorial on installing a portable operating system in your USB stick.
Advantages
There are a lot of advantages of using a portable Virtualbox hard disk and running an operating system with it. The biggest advantage is that you can run the OS on any computer which does not have virtual box installed. Another major advantage is keeping your hard disk free from virtual hard disks or you may even copy the virtual hard disk from one computer to another.
Hope you would find this software useful. What’s your take on portable Virtualbox? Do let us know through a comment.
This question already has an answer here:
- How do I install Ubuntu to a USB key? (without using Startup Disk Creator) 23 answers
- How to create a bootable USB stick? 5 answers
I was just wondering if it is possible to install Ubuntu on a USB Flash Drive, and then run Ubuntu from the USB without rebooting, touching the boot menu, or installing. Just using it on Windows 7, from a USB. Then, say the USB is removed, it goes back to Windows 7.
Many of you will probably ask why I would do this when I can just install it, and here's why:I already have Ubuntu installed at home, but I want to run it at school without touching anything I could get in trouble for. Also, I have no administrator rights, except I do know how to use the login screen as an admin account, but I can't download anything. (I enabled command prompt in the login screen in place of sticky keys, and then typed: explorer.exe to bring up the start menu, etc,)
Anyway, again, I was just wondering if this is possible to do.Thanks.
Braiammarked as duplicate by karel, Braiam, belacqua, mikewhatever, AdityaFeb 23 '14 at 19:01
This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please ask a new question.
4 Answers
I have successfully done this with both Portable VirtualBox and Qemu for Windows.
The pro for Portable VirtualBox is that it gives you the full power of VirtualBox. (It's a modified version of VirtualBox.) The con is that it's very slow from a usb drive. If you use this, definitely go for Lubuntu and maybe even use openbox or fluxbox alone instead of the full Lubuntu session.
Portable VirtualBox has also had some problems with bugs on Windows 7. The developer has stated that it doesn't seem to affect everyone, so it may be related to some arcane Win settings. I had it work fine on one computer, but to get it to work on another Win 7 computer I had to download an older version of the binary. (And it took some trial and error to find one that worked right.)
Another downside is that setting up Portable Vbox in Windows seems to mess up any pre-existing standard VBox install on the same the machine (just the app, not the VM's you may have already created).
LinuxLiveUsb uses Portable Vbox for it's Virtualize this Key option, but the last time I tried it the Win7 bug prevented it from working; plus that option (unlike a standalone Portable Vbox) does not allow persistence.
Qemu also works well. See Qemu for Windows for the binaries and Qemu main site Qemu documentation.
Getting a virtual machine up and running is a little more hands on than in Vbox. But it's not really difficult. This slightly dated page originally intended for Qemu on the OLAP project is helpful for getting started, but it doesn't tell you everything you need to know.
Qemu is arguably a little faster than Vbox since it's somewhat lighter. You may find some older pages saying it's too slow to use in Windows, but my experience is that is no longer true with the newer binaries. Still, you will want to make your install as light as possible with Lubuntu or similar.
Virtualbox Without Admin
Check out portable VirtualBox - http://www.vbox.me/
C.S.CameronC.S.Cameronfind out what key is used to boot into the boot selection menu, usually F8 right after (i mean right after) the bios splash screen disappears. then in the menu, you just select the device to boot from. (this doesnt change anything in the bios as in boot order or whatever. )
AlexAlex
[...] I was just wondering if this is possible to do. [...]
- Yes, it is possible - but you have to be careful.
- You will obviously need 2 USB flash drives
- stick 1 is your Ubuntu Live medium
- stick 2 is the blank one, on which the system will be installed
- Stick 2 should be larger than 8GB!
- Boot from stick 1
Install Ubuntu on stick 2
Install the bootloader on stick 2!
This is the crucial step!
Make no mistake here and be extremely careful!
Do not overwrite the bootloader on your working system! (You might even want to unhook the harddrives in your working system before you start the installation process).
When the installation on stick 2 is finished, you might want to editetc/default/grub and add GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=true to make sure that the OS on the hard drive(s) are not encluded in the GRUB menu.
If stick 2 doesn't boot at home, check if there's a bootable partition!
Goood luck and enjoy!