How to run "Oracle VirtualBox (VBOX)" like a service after boot in fully background "Microsoft Windows (WIN)"?

I want to run autostart "Virtual Machine (VM)" without "Oracle VirtualBox (VBOX)" "Graphical User Interface (GUI)" on local DEV machine with "Microsoft Windows (WIN)".

How can I do that in fully running background process?

Solution 1:

SOLUTION

The trick is to run the VM without GUI. With this you can easily run VM on WIN server like a service too.

Prerequired is that exist some VM, you have some already. Below put its name instead {vm_name}.

1) At first we use build-in executable file "VBoxHeadless.exe".

Create file

vm.run.bat

with

cd "c:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\"
VBoxHeadless.exe -s {vm_name} -v on

run and test it - with WIN "Command Line Interface (CLI)" called "Command shell" - and VM will be opened running in background.

vm.run.bat

2) Then we use "Windows-based script host (WSCRIPT)" and language "Microsoft Visual Basic Script (VBS)" and run above file "vm.run.bat".

Create file

vm.run.vbs

put code

Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
obj = WshShell.Run("vm.run.bat", 0)
set WshShell = Nothing

run and test it - CLI will be run in background.

wscript.exe vm.run.vbs

Ref

• Thanks to iain

Solution 2:

You can use VBoxManage to start a VM headless:

"C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxManage.exe" startvm "Your VM name" --type headless