Run VirtualBox from a Portable Drive

If you need to take VirtualBox with you, you can use a portable drive to operate the OS of your choice.   This is an excellent way to demonstrate virtualization or to use in a programming situation where a program is being designed for a a specific operating system.

Download Portable VirtualBox

In order to run VirtualBox on a portable drive, you will need Portable VirtualBox (Not Sun Supported).

Download this program and extract it to your empty portable drive. (Make sure you have a 2+ GB drive.  Your operating system will have to fit on the drive also)

Download or create an ISO for the operating system of your choice.  You will need to download VirtualBox or you can use Portable VirtualBox to download VirtualBox.

Once you extract the program, navigate to the portable drive and start the program. Navigate to the full version of VirtualBox you downloaded or use Portable VirtualBox to download the VirtualBox (the program is large and could take several minutes to download)

Once the program is downloaded to your portable drive, you can start the program using Portal-VirtualBox.exe

Files Needed (Below Picture) – In this picture, I elected to download VirtualBox and VirtualBox Portable.

After double clicking on the Portable VirtualBox installation, navigate to your portable drive.

Extracted Program Files (Below)

Main Menu (Below) – Portable-VirtualBox.exe started

(Make your selections and navigate to your downloaded VirtualBox program.  Remember you can use the Download button.  I downloaded VirtualBox first as seen in the first picture.

The VirtualBox files will begin to expand to your portable drive.

Extracted VirtualBox (Below) – Use Portable-VirtualBox.exe to start the program which is found outside of the folder below.

Click here for more information on the installation of VirtualBox including tweaks, troubleshooting, exporting and teleportation of VirtualBox from one computer to another.  Don’t forget to check out AMD vs Intel Quad Core Shootout.