Despite how much you dislike Windows, especially Windows 11, there are still times which you can't escape from it. Like many people, I have a virtualbox VM for it, and here are few things I would do to make it "better".
1) Debloating. It is not a secret Windows 11 is not lean even with a fresh installed. Especially if you are unfrotunately having the joy of using its Home edition. So, the first thing you may want to do is to trim it down. Win11Debloat may be a good start.
https://github.com/Raphire/Win11Debloat
2) Compact the VDI image. There are times you either just want to keep the VDI file size in control or you want to export the VM as OVA for backup. For both instance, you may want o compact your VDI first. Here are steps I would take.
a) run Windows' Cleaner tool to delete any obsolete/residue files left from Windows updates.
b) run sdelete to "zero" the empty spaces after the deletion in (a)
sdelete c: /zsdelete is a power toy tool that can be obtained at: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/sdelete
c) run the Windows defrag tool to defragment the drive, so all empty spaces are in continuous blockss.
d) optional. I often run the (b) again, to zero the empty space once more before the compacting.
e) shutdown the VM, and run the below command on the host machine to the VDI file to compact the file.
vboxmanage modifyhd <your vdi file> --compact
If you get the erorr below, try switch to cmd and try again.
