How to safely remove Ubuntu installed on Virtualbox on WinXP

First, make sure you have copies of any important documents inside the virtual machine.

Then, remove the virtual machine in VirtualBox, indicating that the files associated with it should be deleted:
http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch01.html#id482909

Finally, if you're no longer using VirtualBox in the Microsoft Windows XP system, you can uninstall the software.

Note that this is in no way specific to Ubuntu--this applies to other guest operating systems in VirtualBox virtual machines as well, and also applies to VirtualBox running on platforms other than Microsoft Windows.

(Since this advice is potentially useful for users of VirtualBox in Ubuntu, I'm going ahead and marking this question as affecting virtualbox-ose in Ubuntu.)

Hi Eliah,

Thank u very much for your response. I opened the Virtual media manager and it shows the 8GB Ubunto.vdi hard disc, after selecting it, the remove button is shaded and cannot be selected but gives me an option to RELEASE. I presume this opion will do the same? After the release,should I uninstall Virtualbox to completely remove both? I will install on desktop instead of netbook as screen too small. Thank you for your assistance.

Hi Eliah,

Thank u very much for your response. I opened the Virtual media manager and it shows the 8GB Ubunto.vdi hard disc, after selecting it, the remove button is shaded and cannot be selected but gives me an option to RELEASE. I presume this opion will do the same? After the release,should I uninstall Virtualbox to completely remove both? I will install on desktop instead of netbook as screen too small. Thank you for your assistance.

Right-click on the virtual machine in the list of virtual machines (it might be the only one in the list, or there might be others). If you remove the virtual machine and tell it to delete the files associated with it, then it will automatically remove the virtual disk. There is no need to release or remove the virtual hard drive in the Virtual Media Manager.

You do not need to uninstall VirtualBox to remove a virtual machine (and uninstalling VirtualBox will not, by itself, remove any virtual machines). If you are going to install Ubuntu Desktop Edition in a VirtualBox virtual machine, then you certainly should not uninstall VirtualBox, as you intend to keep using it.

However, perhaps you shouldn't remove your Ubuntu virtual machine. If your goal is to have an increased screen size, you can change the screen resolution in the Ubuntu virtual machine and/or make the virtual machine full screen (so it takes up all the space on the host machine's display). If your goal is to use Ubuntu Desktop Edition instead of Ubuntu Netbook Edition, you could install the package called ubuntu-desktop in the Ubuntu virtual machine, and then select Ubuntu Desktop Edition on the login screen. (With ubuntu-desktop installed on your Ubuntu Netbook Edition virtual machine, you can decide which interface you want to use--Netbook Edition or Desktop Edition--each time you log in.)