Jan 22, 2016 Portable Virtual Machines? By Joseph Hogan. While I wouldn't mind having a portable copy of VirtualBox, I'd also have no problem installing the hypervisor software (be it vBox, VMWare, or something else) on both PCs either. This topic has been locked by an administrator and is no longer open for commenting. Portable Windows with/without admin privilege Update: SORRY! It turns out that VirtualBox ties its configuration very closely to specifics of its host machine (such as through the MAC address), so I have to back away from the “portable” claim in this post’s title. I've also tried using virtual box portable, but that needs admin rights to install drivers if you want to use it on a device other than the one that you installed it on. Does anyone know how I can install and use virtual box or another good virtual machine without admin rights? Save hide report. 100% Upvoted.
I need to build a portable virtual machine that could be used on user restricted PCs that need admin permissions.I've heard about QEMU. But the problem is that it is very very slow when running. Is there a high performance alternative?I'm thinking of the ability to control the boot menu temporary without admin privileges, and boot up my custom virtual disk image as a solution if it is possible, but I don't know.
OmarOmar1 Answer
Without admin privileges on the Host OS it will be very difficult to get high performance from your Guest OS unless the system was already pre set up to let you start your portable VM image as a non administrator. For example if VMWare player was already pre-installed on a machine you could easily move your VM on and off the machine making it portable, and you don't need admin privileges to add or remove the VM from the player software.
Portable Virtual Machine Software
If there is no VM software already installed in the Host OS you will need to replace the Host OS. This can be easily done without making any modifications to the computer if the computer you are using supports booting from USB or the CD/DVD drive. What you will need to do is make a Live CD/USB with VirtualBox or other similar Linux VM host software pre-installed on it and also have your VM on a portable USB drive (it can even be the same drive that you are booting from). You then you just need to reboot the computer you want use and boot in to your Live CD/USB and start up your VM, you will be the 'administrator' of Live CD/DVD's OS so the VM software can use the low level drivers that will get you good performance inside your VM.
Your biggest limiting factor in both setups will be the read and write speed of the USB drive you put your VM image on. Most cheap USB sticks do not have good write performance and I would recommend paying for a higher end one that lists good write speeds or even put it on a portable external SSD.
Scott ChamberlainScott Chamberlain