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Host: Debian 9.3 Stretch Guest: Windows 7 (uses an existing partition as disk)
I am currently opening Virtualbox GUI and turning on the VM and using that GUI. I was wondering if is there any gain (less consumption of resources on the host) if I start the VM as a headless using VBoxManage and connect to the VM using remote desktop. Is this true? Is the difference significant?
Dodd
Posted 2018-03-16T15:50:06.783
Reputation: 21
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Headless VMs do not display the graphical output of the running virtual machine on the host machine. This means you will save a miniscule amount of resources not displaying the output on the host machine. However, in the case of Windows 7, it requires a graphical output or it will fail. This means Windows 7 is still processing and outputting its graphics, its just not being displayed.
Keltari
Posted 2018-03-16T15:50:06.783
Reputation: 57 019
Headless is mainly designed for VMs that don't use a graphical interface (dedicated server VMs). From the quick Googling I've done, it looks like Headless runs the VM in the same way, except it doesn't display the graphical output in a window. This probably means that performance would be the same, both in the guest and host. – MoonRunestar – 2018-03-16T15:58:34.850
I realize that this is out of scope for the question, but if you really want the graphical output, you may consider tunneling an actual VGA adapter to your VM - check IOMMU and VFIO if these apply to you (I don't think it works with VirtualBox though) – K.Steff – 2018-03-16T20:45:04.677