[SOLVED] Vbox XP long shutdown time??

[beta1]

Just curious as much as anything but can anyone tell me why Vitualbox takes such a long time to shut down XP or if this is expected behaviour, and what would it be writing to disk all that time?

I am not set to take snapshots at all and neither do I save any data in XP.

Thanks

[menotu]

Can you provide more info please.

What Host are you running?  Which version of VBox;

How much memory have you given the VM;  Are you doing bucketloads of work in the VM? What is a "long time"?

[beta1]

2010 fully updated
latest vbox 3.1.8
1540mb assigned
boots up in under 20 sec

just turning XP on then off again gets me 1 minute 10sec of solid writing to disk before it turns off

Not bucket loads of work never more than 3 apps, I then get 2 minutes of solid disk write (at around 60MB on gkrellm), before it shuts off. I was used to much shorter times in vmware and am not really used to how vbox works

[menotu]

Not bucket loads of work never more than 3 apps, I then get 2 minutes of solid disk write (at around 60MB on gkrellm), before it shuts off. I was used to much shorter times in vmware and am not really used to how vbox works

Not good - it shouldn't take that long, my Win 7 normally shuts down in approx 20secs or so.

Have you got any networks setup?  Shared folders?

Where is the hard drive located? is it local or on another drive or share etc?  Would it be possible to create a new Hard Drive and reinstall XP in that?

Just did a very quick web search and it appears that quite a few people are experiencing VBox/XP issues

Oh, is your VBox installed from the repo or downloaded direct from the Virtualbox site?

[beta1]

Not good?? hmmmmm

Thanks for the input, some more data to consider

Nothing in the way of networks except for an occasional foray into the internet to access the office and I turn that on and off just for the brief period of work, Windows you know..........

Shared folders yes - I use XP as a program base only, my shared folder is basically my linux data partition.

Good point about the hard drive I have a spare drive I can format and install on

Repo installation but it was the same with the Virtualbox site offering.

When I think on it that's a lot of data being written......... wonder where to? I have looked in the most obvious places (to me anyway).

Now you have pointed out the obvious  I will do a wider search also

[menotu]

Good point about the hard drive I have a spare drive I can format and install on

At this point you could create a new VDI hard drive and use that and see whether you still have same issues.

You could also try "unsharing" (is there such a word  ) your shared folder(s) and see whether the activity stops.

What size swap area do you have setup?

[beta1]

Moved XP to it's own hard drive. No change.
"unsharing"   didn't change anything.
Swap never gets used as I am running 8GB of ram on a pae kernel

Doesn't seem to be harming anything so I will wait for the penny to drop methinks.........

Thanks for input menotu.

Bolts of inspiration still most welcome.

Edit: Interesting observation, having the vm image on a separate hard drive pushed the cpu usage up to around 50% all up on this dual core machine without actually doing anything in it.
I have gone back to the other image on the same hard drive as PCLinuxOS and it sits back at around 10 - 15% all up

[menotu]

Actually, 10 - 15% isn't tooooo bad.

I'd consider installing XP into a new VM with a brand new VDI HD as well. If its still a resource hog you'll still have the "old" VDI to fall back on.

BTW, is this from a fresh reboot? I find testing things after a fresh start to be best as that's when the system has most resources available.

Actually in saying that, I find I have more memory available to the system when its come back from hibernation.

Anyway, good luck.

[beta1]

Hi menotu

Yup fresh reboots all round.

Just to be clear my "10 - 15% all up" while running Vbox includes running two large monitors, 4 desktops, (Compiz), quite a few plasmoid thingies  and several programs open full time, (Thunderbird, Audacious etc etc). With everything at rest Vbox only adds a few % of cpu cycles.

The slow down came as a result of installing the XP image on another physical hard drive.......... and it wasn't the result I expected.

I didn't even bother seeing if XP on the new setup was actually faster, (not that I would be able to tell as it is visually quicker than the host anyway..... oops I never said that  ). I  rebooted a few times to check the excessive cpu usage at rest, it didn't float my boat at all so back to the old set up. I keep Vbox/XP running in the background pretty much continuously due to the nature of my work and although it's winter here in NZ I can think of better ways of heating the room  .

I did check within XP itself to see if some program was causing the slowdown but couldn't find any culprits. My next job will be to strip XP down to the absolute bare minimum with XPLite, (it really flies then), with a backup copy handy as unlike in Vmware I can't use a NAT connection out to the internet and have to use a Bridged which from my reading isn't all that secure so just like any window, when it breaks you just replace it.

anyway I'm beginning to waffle a bit, time to close, have another wine and will post if I figure out the shutdown situation. Thanks for the input.

[menotu]

Luck.

[j-retired]

Try using "Save machine state" instead of "Shut down".  This allows you to stop in the middle of a job, literally, and "restore" back to EXACTLY where you were next time you switch on!  On my machine this takes 10-15 seconds each way!
I only use "Shut down" if Windows has crashed.....

j

[kjpetrie]

Is this as new install into VirtualBox or are you reusing a VMware disc image?

[beta1]

j-retired

Great suggestion, that fits the bill nicely, 8 second shutdown, and obvious too......... now you mention it 
Thanks

kjpetrie

all new.

Thanks all.

[menotu]

I was reluctant to suggest "Save machine state" as I know it occasionally cause's problems (won't restart properly) but j-retired seems to of debunked that  so yeah go for it.

I suggest doing a "real" shutdown every so often (think of it as doing a full reboot instead of hibernating  )

[beta1]

I'm with you on that menotu.

I am liking the 8 sec boot ups which inclines me towards testing the theory, newly formulated and as yet unproven, that by choosing "Saving Machine State" it's better than just leaving XP on, as I am wont to do, because it will extend the natural dissolution of XP into discrete chunks separated by forced inactivity before it blue screens me