I have a Windows 8.1 virtual machine, my Windows image is 30GB but I reduced it to 15GB. I used a very compressed read-only file system called Squashfs; the same used for LiveCDs.
But if this is read only, how can it be used? You need a trick. Virtualbox allows you to use hard-disk images as read-only and saving the changes.
Install squashfs-tool
For example using:
sudo apt-get install squashfs-tool
Gentoo users need to compile support in the kernel and at least include xattr and xz USEs
Compress the image file
Move the vdi image to an empty directory and then create the new image, for example:
mksquashfs /home/you/directory image.sfs
Edit your fstab file (/etc/fstab)
Add something like this:
/home/you/image.sfs /mnt/ squashfs defaults 0 0
- /home/you/image.sfs is the compressed image
- /mnt/ is the mountpoint
Then run the following:
sudo mount -a
Create a symbolic link
First rename the original image and replace it with the symbolic link
ln -s /mnt/windows.vdi / home / voce / Virtualbox \ VMs / Windows
- /mnt/windows.vdi is the image
- /home/you/Virtualbox \ VMs /Windows is the location of the virtual machine
Open VirtualBox
Press Ctrl + D
Select the correct image
Then press Ctrl + Space
Finally choose Multi-attach
And that’s all c:
And after that I played a bit with Rewrite of Key, which I have in the aforementioned compressed Windows :3
