Due to some problems on my VM on which Ubuntu 12.04 LTS was running, I removed the entire VirtualBox system and I reinstalled a new one.
After installation, I was surprised to see that my former Ubuntu VM is still there with all the data I left inside !
Can someone explain me why this happened ?
The reason you still have all your virtual machines and their settings after removal and reinstallation of the Virtual Box application is a strictly separated storage of the actual application, and user created data.
From Virtual Box >= 4.0 all files created by any user will be stored in a subdirectory in our HOME directory (see Virtual Box manual):
Global settings
From 4.3. global configuration settings for your Virtual Box environment are stored in ~/.config/VirtualBox/. If we had upgraded from a version < 4.3 of Virtual Box the directory ~/.VirtualBox will still be used instead. It is also the location where registered VMs are stored in an .XML file.
Virtual machines
All virtual machines and their settings are stored in an own directory, per default in ~/Virtual Box VMs/<Name of VM>/. Old machines from previous releases of Virtual Box will still reside in the ~/.VirtualBox/Machines for compatibility reasosn.
To delete virtual machines we will therefore have to unregister any machine and then also delete the machine's hard disk(s) and settings. This can easily be done from the Virtual Box Virtual Media Manager.
