Replacing the HAL can be done by booting the VM from the Windows CD and performing a repair installation.įor reasons we don't understand, Windows memorizes which IDE/ATA controller it was installed on and fails to boot in case the controller changes. So as a first step, you either have to enable IO APIC support in VirtualBox or replace the HAL. A standard installation on a modern physical PC or VMware will usually result in Halaacpi.dll being chosen as most systems nowadays have an IO APIC and VMware chose to virtualize it by default (VirtualBox disables the IO APIC because it is more expensive to virtualize than a standard PIC).

If you perform a Windows installation with default settings in VirtualBox, Halacpi.dll will be chosen as VirtualBox enables ACPI by default but disables the IO APIC by default. Here are the most common HALs (for more information, refer to this article: ): While hardware vendor specific HALs have become very rare, there are still a number of HALs shipped by Microsoft. The hardware dependent portion of the Windows kernel is dubbed 'Hardware Abstraction Layer' (HAL). There's a step by step description below. It is also assumed that a suitable virtual disk image (either VDI or VMDK for VirtualBox >= 1.4) is already present. We assume that either a physical Windows installation or a VMware image is the source of migration. This document explains the common pitfalls and how to workaround these. This is not just due to Microsoft's activation mechanism but the fact that the installed kernel and drivers depend on the actual hardware. Windows installations, unlike Linux, cannot easily be moved from one hardware to another.

These instructions are provided as-is in the hope that they are helpful. How to migrate existing Windows installations to VirtualBoxĭisclaimer: Migration of Windows guests from a physical host into a VirtualBox VM is not supported.

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