This post is out of date.
So I updated it.
See the Windows 7 way to run virtualbox machines headless
I keep forgetting this simple little line to start a virtualbox so that it behaves like a remote server (ie without any windows and crap cluttering my display)
start /b vboxheadless -s myjeos
“start” is the windows command to start a process
“/b” tells start not to create a window for the process
“vboxheadless” is the process to start
“-s” tells vboxheadless to start a machine
“myjeos” is the name of the machine to start
I’m glad I stumbled upon this post, because the information is literally nowhere else. Seriously, try googling for “start /b vboxheadless”.
Something fishy is going on though. When I start it from the command line, I can get a new prompt while it’s running in the background, where I can DIR and all that jazz. But when I type exit, it hangs. The culprit? VBoxHeadless.exe. Observing the task manager, this process dies as soon as I close the console window.
So I’m still stuck with an ugly console window cluttering my desk while VirtualBoxHeadless.exe is running. Any thoughts? Have you gotten it to the point where you can run VirtualBoxHeadless in the background with no windows open?
Thanks,
Joe
Hi Joe,
You’re right! I get the same behaviour; I can’t exit the dos window from which I run this command without killing the machine. I’d not noticed this; no doubt because I tend to leave the dos window open.
Definately a problem of parent-child processes. We need to work out how to fork a process on windows, or detach the child, or something like that. Any ideas?
Thanks for the heads-up.
John.
I found the answer, but it’s kind of a hack.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071011212557AAofTy6
Of all places. But it seems to do exactly what I want.