I added a launcher for my Windows VM to my panel, which was simply running ‘VBoxManage startvm <VM UUID>’. This was not an optimal solution though, as I wanted it to show a little error dialog when something went wrong when attempting to launch the VM (eg because I forgot it was already running), when the virtual disk files aren’t accessible (because I forgot to mount the volume they reside on), etc.

So I cooked a little script which runs some sanity checks before launching the virtual machine, and reports any errors. Here it is:

#!/bin/bash

# This script was written by Nicolas Trangez <eikke eikke com>
# It can act as a launcher script for VirtualBox virtual machines
# and provides some basic error checking/reporting when doing so.
# It might be useful when using a shortcut to launch machines in a
# desktop environment.

VBOXMANAGE=$(which VBoxManage)
ZENITY=$(which zenity)
VBOXVMUUID=$1

if [ ! -x ${ZENITY} ]; then
        echo "Error: The zenity tool could not be found."
        exit 1
fi

if [ ! $# = 1 ]; then
        ${ZENITY} --error --title "Argument required" --text "This script should be called with one argument: the UUID of the VirtualBox virtual machine you want to start.

To find out this UUID, run \"${VBOXMANAGE} list vms\"."
        exit 2
fi

if ! ${VBOXMANAGE} list vms | grep ^UUID | grep ${VBOXVMUUID} > /dev/null; then
        ${ZENITY} --error --title "Unknown Virtual Machine" --text "No VirtualBox virtual machine with UUID \"${VBOXVMUUID}\" could be found."
        exit 3
fi

if ${VBOXMANAGE} showvminfo ${VBOXVMUUID} | grep ^Primary\ master > /dev/null; then
        DISKFILE=$(${VBOXMANAGE} showvminfo ${VBOXVMUUID} | grep ^Primary\ master | sed -e "s/Primary\ master:\ *//" -e 's/\ *(UUID.*$//')
        if [ ! -r ${DISKFILE} ]; then
                ${ZENITY} --error --title "Primary master not found" --text "The image file for the primary master disk, ${DISKFILE}, could not be found."
                exit 1
        fi
fi

if ${VBOXMANAGE} showvminfo ${VBOXVMUUID} | grep ^Primary\ slave > /dev/null; then
        DISKFILE=$(${VBOXMANAGE} showvminfo ${VBOXVMUUID} | grep ^Primary\ slave | sed -e "s/Primary\ slave:\ *//" -e 's/\ *(UUID.*$//')
        if [ ! -r ${DISKFILE} ]; then
                ${ZENITY} --error --title "Primary slave not found" --text "The image file for the primary slave disk, ${DISKFILE}, could not be found."
                exit 1
        fi
fi

if ${VBOXMANAGE} showvminfo ${VBOXVMUUID} | grep ^Secondary\ slave > /dev/null; then
        DISKFILE=$(${VBOXMANAGE} showvminfo ${VBOXVMUUID} | grep ^Secondary\ slave | sed -e "s/Secondary\ slave:\ *//" -e 's/\ *(UUID.*$//')
        if [ ! -r ${DISKFILE} ]; then
                ${ZENITY} --error --title "Secondary slave not found" --text "The image file for the secondary slave disk, ${DISKFILE}, could not be found."
                exit 1
        fi
fi

VBOXOUT=$(${VBOXMANAGE} startvm ${VBOXVMUUID})
VBOXCODE=$?

if [ ! ${VBOXCODE} = 0 ]; then
        echo -e ${VBOXOUT}
        VBOXERROR=$(echo ${VBOXOUT} | grep "\[\!\]\ Text" | sed "s/.*\[\!\]\ Text\ *=\ *//")
        VBOXERROR=$(echo ${VBOXERROR} | sed "s/\ \[\!\].*//")
        ${ZENITY} --error --title "Error starting Virtual Machine" --text "An error occured while starting the virtual machine:

${VBOXERROR}

Run \"${VBOXMANAGE} startvm ${VBOXVMUUID}\" to see more details."
        exit 4
fi

Enjoy!