VirtualBox: How to shut down Virtual Machine

Question

I am not sure how to shut down my virtual machine (Ubuntu 32 bit). When I press the drop down menu labeled "Machine" and press close, it gives me three options. Should I use any of these? When I used ACPI it messed up the virtual machine and I had to delete it. Is there a fast and safe way to shut down a VM? I have core i5, 12gb ram, amd radeon hd 7750 and 1 TB hard drive and windows 8.1

Solution

Shut down Ubuntu, as if it were the primary operating system. The virtual machine window should close automatically.

1. Click the gear icon (in the upper right corner of the screen)
2. Click "Shut down" in the menu
3. Click "Shut down" on the pop-up dialog.

Forcing the virtual machine to "Power Off" is the equivalent of pulling the power cord. The system would not shutdown gracefully and is not recommended.

Or if you don't have unity desktop or you want to use the terminal, execute this

sudo shutdown -h 0

Comments

[John]

It does not work. When I followed your directions to shut it down, the VM remained running and the second time I boot it ( after closing it), it says that there was no media to boot from.