How to run VirtualBox as service in Windows

21 Jun 2009 @ 8:40 PM

Contents

vbox_logo2_gradient After days of googling and a lot of trial and errors, I finally succeed running virtualbox as service. I tried VBoxVmService by mattz but have no luck. Then I tried another method with srvstart and Windows Service Commander explained here. It works for one Virtual Machine, but not for multiple Virtual Machines. While I need to run three Virtual Machines simultaneously. All without any user logged on! OK, enough talking, let’s start the tutorial…

Preparation
1. I tried this only on Windows XP SP3 and Windows 2003 Server SP2 (I think it may works on Windows 2000 Server as well)
  update: this method works on Windows Server 2008 (check Brian’s comment below) Thanks Brian!
  update Sept 29th 2009 : it works on Windows Seven 64 bit (check Mr Incredible’s comment). Thanks Mr Incredible!
  update Sept 29th 2009: it works on Windows Vista (check Victor Pajor’s comment below). Thanks Victor Pajor!
2. SUN VirtualBox for Windows version 2.2.2 or more (download here)
  update Oct 13th 2009: it works on Windows XP SP3 with VirtualBox 3.0.8 (check Kikeze’s comment below). Thanks Kikeze!
3. srvstart (download here)
4. Windows Service Commander (download here)
Installation

1. Install SUN VirtualBox, create and configure your guest OS’s
2. Make sure you click the Remote Display setting, and check the “Enable VRDP server” option. Then assign a port number like 3001, 3002, 3003, etc.
3. Setup all your guest OS’s as needed (install applications, setup preferences, tweaks, etc.)
4. Shutdown all your guest OS’s
5. Go to C:Documents and SettingsYOURUSERNAME.VirtualBox and open the file VirtualBox.xml with notepad.
6. Press CTRL+F (find) and type “src” without quotes and press ENTER
7. Edit the words src=”MachinesYOURVMNAMEYOURVMNAME.xml“ into src=”C:Documents and SettingsYOURUSERNAME.VirtualBoxMachinesYOURVMNAMEYOURVMNAME.xml. Close the file, and click Yes when asked “Do you want to save the changes?”. If you have more than one Virtual Machines, then you must repeat this step and replace the paths to your Virtual Machines’s .xml file accordingly.
  
  original src
  
  modified src
8. Copy the file named VirtualBox.xml from C:Documents and SettingsYOURUSERNAME.VirtualBox to C:Documents and SettingsLocalService.VirtualBox
9. Install Windows Service Commander
10. Create a new directory C:vm
11. Extract the srvstart_run.v110.zip file to this C:vm directory
12. Open notepad, copy and paste the code below
```
env=VBOXGUI="C:Program FilesSunxVM VirtualBoxvirtualbox.exe"
env=VBOXHEADLESS="C:Program FilesSunxVM VirtualBoxvboxheadless.exe"
env=VBOXWEBSRV="C:Program FilesSunxVM VirtualBoxvboxwebsrv.exe"
env=VBOXMANAGE="C:Program FilesSunxVM VirtualBoxVBoxManage.exe"
env=VBOX_PROG="C:Program FilesSunxVM VirtualBox"
env=VBOX_BASE="C:Documents and SettingsYOURUSERNAMEHERE.VirtualBox"
env=VBOX_MACHINES="C:Documents and SettingsYOURUSERNAMEHERE.VirtualBoxmachines"
env=VBOX_VDI="C:Documents and SettingsYOURUSERNAMEHERE.VirtualBoxHardDisks"
env=USERPROFILE=%SystemDrive%Documents and SettingsLocalService

debug=1
debug_out=>C:vmvm.log

[YOURVMNAME]
startup=%VBOXHEADLESS% -startvm YOURVMNAME
shutdown_method=command
shutdown=%VBOXMANAGE% controlvm YOURVMNAME savestate
```
13. Replace YOURUSERNAME above with your own windows user account, and YOURVMNAME with your own Virtual Machine’s name
14. Close Notepad and save it as srvstart.ini in C:VM
15. Run Windows Service Commander
16. Click Tools > Install new service
17. The Service install wizard will show up, click Next
18. Enter
```
c:VMsrvstart.exe svc YOURVMNAME -c "c:vmsrvstart.ini"
```
19. Again, replace YOURVMNAME above with your own Virtual Machine’s name
20. Press Next
21. Enter any name you want in the Name and Display Name field (ie. My VM Service), then add some descriptions if needed (optional)
22. Press Next
23. Check the “Allow service to interact with desktop” option
24. Press Next
25. Leave the startup as Manual and error as Ignore for now
26. Press Next
27. Press Next again as there’s nothing to change here
28. Click Finish
29. Now you’ll see the new service name in the service list
30. Click on it and press the triangle button at the toolbar to start the service
31. If the red round icon turns into green, then your VM is running as service successfully!
32. If everything’s work as expected, you can change the startup type of your service as automatic, so every time your host Windows OS runs, your VirtualBox service will also runs

Notes

If you want to modify an existing Virtual Machine’s configuration (eg. add memory, etc), or add a new Virtual Machine, you must set the VirtualBox service’s startup type to manual first, shutdown all your guest OS’s, and restart the host OS. We do this so there is no process is locking up the VirtualBox.xml file. After restart, the .VirtualBox.xml file can be modified and recopied into C:Documents and SettingsLocalService.VirtualBox (see step no. 8 above)

To control your Virtual Machines, you can use Remote Desktop Connection and put your host computer’s IP, followed by a colon and the port number u assigned in the Remote Display setting (see step no. 2 above) eg. 192.168.2.60:3001

See the debug=1 line in the srvstart.ini file above? You can safely set it to debug=0 if no errors occurred when practicing this tutorial.

This tutorial shows how to run a single Virtual Machine as service, next time I will write another tutorial to run multiple Virtual Machines like mine. Check out the tutorial to run multiple Virtual Machine!

Source with some modifications from VirtualBox forum (rasker’s post)

Snapshots will be added later.

Victor Pajor

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Posted By: LiveDeviL
Last Edit: 13 Oct 2009 @ 09:59 AM

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Tags: Tutorial, Virtual Machine, VirtualBox
Categories: Tutorials, VirtualBox

Mr Justin says:

November 17, 2009 at 6:05 am

is there any way to supress that “Interactive Services Dialog” screen that comes up? When i uncheck “Allow service to interact with desktop” the service doesnt work.

LiveDeviL Reply:
November 17th, 2009 at 9:39 am
@Mr Justin, I’m not sure about that. but they don’t bother me much as I’m not monitoring the host directly in front of it’s screen. the main purpose is to get vbox run as a service without any interaction at all from us the user (or admin), even without the need to login first…

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George Tudor says:

November 26, 2009 at 6:24 pm

here is how to hide the system windows:

1. download this tool http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/nircmd.html
2. extract the files to c:\vm\nircmd
3. in c:\documents and settings\all users\start menu\programs\startup

create a file called hidevm.bat containing the following line:

c:\vm\nircmd\nircmd win hide ititle “vboxheadless”

voila!

there may be a way to set this up as a service, but I got some error and didnt have time to deal with it right now

thanks for the great post!

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Nepumuck says:

December 8, 2009 at 6:29 am

Hey, thanks for this tutorial

After hours, now the service runs under Win2008 Server (32bit).
The trick was _no_ quotes in the .ini file.
Ignore the whitespaces!!!

env=VBOXGUI=C:\Program Files\Sun\virtualbox\VirtualBox.exe env=VBOXHEADLESS=C:\Program Files\Sun\VirtualBox\VBoxHeadless.exe env=VBOXWEBSRV=C:\Program Files\Sun\VirtualBox\vboxwebsrv.exe env=VBOXMANAGE=C:\Program Files\Sun\VirtualBox\VBoxManage.exe env=VBOX_PROG=C:\Program Files\Sun\VirtualBox\ env=VBOX_BASE=C:\Users\Administrator\.VirtualBox\ env=VBOX_MACHINES=D:\Virtual Machines\VMs\ env=VBOX_VDI=D:\Virtual Machines\HDDs\ env=USERPROFILE=C:\Users\Administrator

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vbox 3.2.6 changes says:

July 23, 2010 at 11:53 pm

This works with the new oracle vm 3.2.6 if anyone is interested. All you have to do is change a few paths in your srvstart.ini Another trick i had no .virtualbox folder on my %SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\LocalService
on Win Xp SP3
So I made the xml file change and instead of copying the xml file i just copied the virtual box folder to the LocalService folder.

Note the changes in some of the capitalization and path changes in the srvstart.ini…. Everything else in the article worked the same.

env=VBOXGUI=”C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VirtualBox.exe”
env=VBOXHEADLESS=”C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxHeadless.exe”
env=VBOXWEBSRV=”C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\vboxwebsrv.exe”
env=VBOXMANAGE=”C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxManage.exe”
env=VBOX_PROG=”C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox”
env=VBOX_BASE=”C:\Documents and Settings\YourUserId\.VirtualBox”
env=VBOX_MACHINES=”C:\Documents and Settings\YourUserId\.VirtualBox\Machines”
env=VBOX_VDI=”PathToYourVdiFile”
env=USERPROFILE=%SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\LocalService

debug=1
debug_out=>C:\vm\vm.log

[YourVmName]
startup=%VBOXHEADLESS% -startvm YourVmName
shutdown_method=command
shutdown=%VBOXMANAGE% controlvm YourVmName savestate

Reply to this Comment
Steve says:

August 11, 2010 at 11:15 pm

Hi, Okay so I followed you instructions and change a few things by the comments bellow the instructions, and it I tried to start the service and it is stuck on the little screen called Service Control that pops up with the loading bar and it says “Starting Service….” “The name I gave the service”
and the loading bar is completely at 100% and it is stuck there, do you have any ideas on what it could be.

LiveDeviL Reply:
August 27th, 2010 at 11:20 pm
@Steve, Hello. First of all, I apologize for my late reply.

About the stuck problem,
1. have you set the service’s Startup Type to disabled (or manual) before making any changes to the VM’s configuration?
2. when the “Starting Service…” screen popped up and the loading bar was completely at 100%, what was the VM status?
3. when you run the VM manually, does it shows any error?

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Steve says:

August 12, 2010 at 1:53 am

I found an easier way if you would like to know http://www.ehow.com/how_4888308_use-via-remote-desktop-connection.html It works on Windows XP Pro 32 bit

LiveDeviL Reply:
August 27th, 2010 at 11:34 pm
@Steve, thanks for the URL. but I think this method is only to make it easier and faster to run VM without the need of opening the virtualbox GUI first. so it serves a different purpose compared to “as service” method. the whole point of this “as service” method is to start one or multiple VM’s automatically when the host is started, and save the VM’s last state (or shutdown if configured so) when the host is shutdown or restarts, without any action from any user in that host. hope it helps.

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sierrj says:

September 1, 2010 at 12:46 am

Gracias, trabaja de maravilla en Server 8, con algunos cambios claro

LiveDeviL Reply:
September 1st, 2010 at 3:33 pm
@sierrj, Usted es siempre bienvenido.

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