| 1 | <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
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| 2 | <!DOCTYPE topic PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Topic//EN" "topic.dtd">
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| 3 | <topic xml:lang="en-us" id="vboxconfigdata-XML-files">
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| 4 | <title><ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> XML Files</title>
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| 5 |
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| 6 | <body>
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| 7 | <p>
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| 8 | <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> uses XML for both the machine settings files and
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| 9 | the global configuration file,
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| 10 | <filepath>VirtualBox.xml</filepath>.
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| 11 | </p>
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| 12 | <p>
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| 13 | All <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> XML files are versioned. When a new settings
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| 14 | file is created, for example because a new virtual machine is
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| 15 | created, <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> automatically uses the settings format
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| 16 | of the current <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> version. These files may not be
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| 17 | readable if you downgrade to an earlier version of
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| 18 | <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/>. However, when <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> encounters a
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| 19 | settings file from an earlier version, such as after upgrading
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| 20 | <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/>, it attempts to preserve the settings format as
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| 21 | much as possible. It will only silently upgrade the settings
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| 22 | format if the current settings cannot be expressed in the old
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| 23 | format, for example because you enabled a feature that was not
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| 24 | present in an earlier version of <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/>.
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| 25 | </p>
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| 26 | <p>
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| 27 | In such cases, <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> backs up the old settings file in
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| 28 | the virtual machine's configuration directory. If you need to go
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| 29 | back to the earlier version of <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/>, then you will
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| 30 | need to manually copy these backup files back.
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| 31 | </p>
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| 32 | <p>
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| 33 | We intentionally do not document the specifications of the
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| 34 | <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> XML files, as we must reserve the right to modify
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| 35 | them in the future. We therefore strongly suggest that you do
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| 36 | not edit these files manually. <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> provides complete
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| 37 | access to its configuration data through its the
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| 38 | <userinput>VBoxManage</userinput> command line tool, see
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| 39 | <xref href="vboxmanage.dita">VBoxManage</xref> and its API, see
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| 40 | <xref href="VirtualBoxAPI.dita"/>.
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| 41 | </p>
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| 42 | </body>
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| 43 |
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| 44 | </topic>
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