Windows 10 Was NOT My Idea, But It Was Free

Shitty Author — Wed, 19 Aug 2015 01:48:19 +0000

So, I decided to make use of the complimentary upgrade from my current Windows 7 running on VirtualBox to Windows 10. Not exactly the smoothest process, but I got it working after 5 days.

I’m listing all the problems I encountered and the solutions I applied to get my free toy that I rarely use.

PROBLEM: “Get Windows 10” icon not showing on taskbar

To fix this, run all Windows updates first. In my case, I had to upgrade my Windows 7 to SP1 for that icon to show up.

PROBLEM: “CPU isn’t supported” error

When clicking on “Get Windows 10”, you may get “CPU isn’t supported” error.

To fix this, shut down guest VM. Then, check “Enable PAE/NX” setting in VirtualBox.

PROBLEM: “Get Windows 10” error report doesn’t refresh

It appears Microsoft configures Windows 10 Compatibility Appraiser to run every once awhile.

To fix this, force it immediately because my time is money.

schtasks.exe /Run /TN "\Microsoft\Windows\Application Experience\Microsoft Compatibility Appraiser"

Wait for a few minutes before checking the error report.

PROBLEM: “Virtualbox Graphics Adapter was not compatible with Windows 10” error

Okay, this is pure bull.

To fix this, download Media Creation Tool and use that to perform the upgrade instead.

PROBLEM: Progress stuck at 0% for hours

When running media creation tool, the progress may be stuck at 0% or whatever percentage for hours. Well, the Microsoft servers are overloaded.

To fix this, rerun Media Creation Tool, say 5AM in the morning… works for me.

PROBLEM: “Setup has failed to initialize the working directory” error

Basically, the guest VM doesn’t have enough space for Windows 10 upgrade.

To fix this, shut down guest VM.

Then, increase the virtual space by running the following command on the host. In my case, I increased my virtual size to 100GB.

VBoxManage modifyhd "/Users/Shitty Author/VirtualBox VMs\Windows 7\Windows 7.vdi” --resize 102400

Now, increase the actual space by first downloading GParted Live ISO.

In VirtualBox, add this ISO to “IDE Controller”. Make sure CD is booted before hard drive.

Run guest VM.

When GParted Live gets loaded, use the default values by hitting Enter keys several times.

Expand the existing NTFS drive space accordingly.

Restart guest VM.

Rerun Media Creation Tool… and hopefully it works this time.

What Now?

Well, now I have Windows 10 Pro running in VirtualBox, together with Ubuntu, Centos, Fedora and Android OS.

In reality, I will only use Windows 10 to test my software and spend 99.9% of my time on Mac.

The post Windows 10 Was NOT My Idea, But It Was Free appeared first on My Shitty Code.

VirtualBox: Failed to delete the storage unit of the hard disk /PATH/HARD-DISK.vdi. Cannot close medium ‘/PATH/HARD-DISK.vdi’ because it has N child media.

Shitty Author — Sat, 23 Nov 2013 14:36:33 +0000

After upgrading to VirtualBox 4.3.2 r90405, I get this dreaded error message when running VirtualBox:-

One or more virtual hard disks, CD/DVD or floppy disk image files are not
currently accessible. As a result, you will not be able to operate virtual
machines that use these files until they become accessible later.
Press Check to open the Virtual Media Manager window and see which files
are inaccessible, or press Ignore to ignore this message.

I was able to clone the offending VDI and boot from the cloned VDI without losing any data. The cloning process took about half hour.

Now, when I try to remove the offending VDI under Virtual Media Manager, I get the following error message:-

Failed to delete the storage unit of the hard disk
/Users/theUser/Library/VirtualBox/HardDisks/Windows.vdi.
Cannot close medium '/Users/theUser/Library/VirtualBox/HardDisks/Windows.vdi'
because it has 2 child media.

So, I ran the following command on the Terminal:-

VBoxManage list hdds

… and these are the results I see:-

UUID:           8c688dc1-0ec3-4528-82b8-efd78a24277e
Parent UUID:    base
State:          created
Type:           normal (base)
Location:       /Users/theUser/Library/VirtualBox/HardDisks/Windows.vdi
Storage format: VDI
Capacity:       51200 MBytes


UUID:           7ef3723f-e960-4e68-9b8c-ef8d65b1474b
Parent UUID:    8c688dc1-0ec3-4528-82b8-efd78a24277e
State:          inaccessible
Type:           normal (differencing)
Location:       /Users/theUser/Library/VirtualBox/Machines/Windows 7 64/Snapshots/{7ef3723f-e960-4e68-9b8c-ef8d65b1474b}.vdi
Storage format: VDI
Capacity:       0 MBytes

UUID:           633a54a5-c3c0-4330-b371-9d448ae28c4c
Parent UUID:    8c688dc1-0ec3-4528-82b8-efd78a24277e
State:          inaccessible
Type:           normal (differencing)
Location:       /Users/theUser/Library/VirtualBox/Machines/Windows 7 64/Snapshots/{633a54a5-c3c0-4330-b371-9d448ae28c4c}.vdi
Storage format: VDI
Capacity:       0 MBytes

UUID:           7375877a-0e16-4803-a972-ac4e84f71a4b
Parent UUID:    base
State:          created
Type:           normal (base)
Location:       /Users/theUser/Library/VirtualBox/HardDisks/Ubuntu 32.vdi
Storage format: VDI
Capacity:       8192 MBytes

UUID:           70a8d322-a207-4e56-afc3-50fbaa97593e
Parent UUID:    base
State:          created
Type:           normal (base)
Location:       /Users/theUser/VirtualBox VMs/Ubuntu 64 Clone/Ubuntu 64 Clone.vdi
Storage format: VDI
Capacity:       10240 MBytes

UUID:           6d655fd9-362b-4ae6-b2ad-2be61582aa72
Parent UUID:    base
State:          created
Type:           normal (base)
Location:       /Users/theUser/VirtualBox VMs/Ubuntu 12.04 LTS - 64bit/Ubuntu 12.04 LTS - 64bit.vdi
Storage format: VDI
Capacity:       10240 MBytes

UUID:           1ff0ee93-bdf0-4162-ad50-636bbc8870cf
Parent UUID:    base
State:          created
Type:           normal (base)
Location:       /Users/theUser/VirtualBox VMs/Centos 64/Centos 64.vdi
Storage format: VDI
Capacity:       10240 MBytes

UUID:           190349ca-ce6d-4f95-bf65-f378f476c403
Parent UUID:    base
State:          created
Type:           normal (base)
Location:       /Users/theUser/VirtualBox VMs/Windows 7/Windows 7-disk1.vdi
Storage format: VDI
Capacity:       51200 MBytes

The highlighted rows are the offending VDIs that I tried to remove. After checking the file system, both Windows 7 snapshots no longer exist but VirtualBox still keeps track of them in VirtualBox.xml.

Using the UUIDs, I remove both snapshots first:-

VBoxManage closemedium disk 633a54a5-c3c0-4330-b371-9d448ae28c4c
VBoxManage closemedium disk 7ef3723f-e960-4e68-9b8c-ef8d65b1474b

Then, I remove the offending parent VDI:-

VBoxManage closemedium disk 8c688dc1-0ec3-4528-82b8-efd78a24277e

Now, when I rerun VirtualBox again, the error message does not appear anymore

The post VirtualBox: Failed to delete the storage unit of the hard disk /PATH/HARD-DISK.vdi. Cannot close medium ‘/PATH/HARD-DISK.vdi’ because it has N child media. appeared first on My Shitty Code.

VirtualBox – My Shitty Code