VirtualBox

[hgm]

Nowadays I do virtually all my development work on a Linux system that I run under VirtualBox on my Windows 8 laptop. Today I was running FireFox on the Windows part of that laptop, when the computer suddenly switched off. This has happened before, and seems to be related to having used hybernation mode (where I just close the lid to turn off power, and it restores the exact state when I re-open it). Normally I then just reboot, which is what I would have had to do anyway if I had shut down the computer instead of putting it in hybernation.

Today, however, the reboot took excessively long, and went accompanied by messages like @Upgrading Windows@ and @Cofiguring upgrades, do not switch off your computer@. When it finally finished booting, most of my settings seemed to have disappeared (e.g. it did no longer have FireFox as my default browser). The keyboard also is fucked up; it gives me at-signs when I type a double quote.

But the worst is that the virtual Linux machine has completely disappeared. When I start Virtual box it kindly informs me that I haven't defined any virtual machines, and asks me if I want to create one. Before I used to have two (running different versions of Ubuntu).

Does anyone know how I can recover from this situation? I would really like to have the file system of that Linux machine back.

[velmarin]

It seems windows 10 updated to the service pack 1, windows puts everything by default, a problem.
Try to find the path of their virtual images box, for example:
C:\Users\your_name\VirtualBox VMs\Ubuntu\ect,,,

And but use the search engine (cortana) for virtual machines *.vbox or *.vdi.
and good luck.

[hgm]

Thank you, that worked! I did find an Ubuntu.10.4 icon in an Ubuntu.10.04 folder in that VirtualBox VMs folder, and clicking that starts up VirtualBox with that machine avaliable.

[JoshPettus]

Wait what! Microsoft did an involuntary update to windows 10 on your windows 8 machine?!? My wife said yesterday the windows 10 computer randomly shutdown and updated without warning which is bothersome in it's own right, but go from windows 8 to 10 sp1 without your knowledge sounds bad indeed.

[hgm]

No, it seems I have Windows 8.1 now (used to be 8.0). And it does not seem the shutdown that triggered it was software-orchestrated. (This happened to me once with normal updates, where suddenly a modal popup appeared that blocked usage of the system, and that could only be closed by agreeing to a restart that would lose you all your work in progress.) In this case I was just making a gesture on the touch pad, and then I heard a click (probably the power being taken off the head-positioning of the hard drive, so that a spring would force it to its neutral position) and at the same time the display went black. Like you pull the plug on a machine without batteries. The unusual thing was that on the reboot it thought I had given permission for an upgrade.

BTW, does anyone know where Mozilla Thunderbird stores its files? I have also lost all my stored e-mail messages of the past two years. It seems like none of the installed applications can find their data files anymore, like the pathname of my user folder was changed...

[JoshPettus]

Oh I see, well 8.1 is better at least it has a start menu. But what a pain and really strange about the user files...

[Evert]

No, it seems I have Windows 8.1 now (used to be 8.0). And it does not seem the shutdown that triggered it was software-orchestrated. (This happened to me once with normal updates, where suddenly a modal popup appeared that blocked usage of the system, and that could only be closed by agreeing to a restart that would lose you all your work in progress.)

That's obscene.

Mac OS X likes to pop up notices with input focus while you're typing. I've accidentally "agreed" to a couple because I happened to hit the space bar just as the dialog came up.

EDIT: I think my wife's machine auto-updated from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 at some point. Best keep an eye on it if you don't want that...

[Greg Strong]

I think my wife's machine auto-updated from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 at some point. Best keep an eye on it if you don't want that...

Yes, Windows is very aggressive about upgrading to 10 and you absolutely don't want that - basically a spyware OS. This will stop it from getting installed accidentally: http://blog.ultimateoutsider.com/2015/0 ... emove.html

[hgm]

Indeed, both my Win 8.1 and Win 7 machines are pestering me with popups to upgrade to Win 10. I must admit that the popup that forced the restart did come after I had been ignoring similar popups that did offer a choice (Restart / Close) for a week, and that fo a few days it had been adding the sentence @your computer will be restarted today@ in these popups. Still I think it is obscene...

[Greg Strong]

Indeed, both my Win 8.1 and Win 7 machines are pestering me with popups to upgrade to Win 10. I must admit that the popup that forced the restart did come after I had been ignoring similar popups that did offer a choice (Restart / Close) for a week, and that fo a few days it had been adding the sentence @your computer will be restarted today@ in these popups. Still I think it is obscene...

Yup, Windows is getting continuously more annoying and intrusive. That link I sent will also stop the annoying upgrade popups, though.