Sun Microsystems VIRTUALBOX 3.0.0 User Manual
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3 Starting out with VirtualBox
VM settings after installing a guest operating system, certain changes might prevent a
guest operating system from functioning correctly if done after installation.
Note: The “Settings” button is disabled while a VM is either in the “running”
or “saved” state. This is simply because the settings dialog allows you to
change fundamental characteristics of the virtual computer that is created for
your guest operating system, and this operating system may not take it well
when, for example, half of its memory is taken away from under its feet. As a
result, if the “Settings” button is disabled, shut down the current VM first.
VirtualBox provides a plethora of parameters that can be changed for a virtual ma-
chine. The various settings that can be changed in the “Settings” window are described
in detail in chapter
, page
. Even more parameters are
available with the command line interface; see chapter
, page
For now, if you have just created an empty VM, you will probably be most interested
in the settings presented by the “CD/DVD-ROM” section if you want to make a CD-
ROM or a DVD-ROM available the first time you start it, in order to install your guest
operating system.
For this, you have two options:
• If you have actual CD or DVD media from which you want to install your guest
operating system (e.g. in the case of a Windows installation CD or DVD), put the
media into your host’s CD or DVD drive.
Then, in the settings dialog, go to the “CD/DVD-ROM” section and select “Host
drive” with the correct drive letter (or, in the case of a Linux host, device file).
This will allow your VM to access the media in your host drive, and you can
proceed to install from there.
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