Win10 guest on Win7 host Shared Clipboard not working

Discussions about using Windows guests in VirtualBox.
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FeriM
Posts: 2
Joined: 13. Jan 2023, 01:30

Win10 guest on Win7 host Shared Clipboard not working

Post by FeriM »

Started some experimenting with a Win 10 guest on a Win 7 host.
Version 6.1.40 r154048 (Qt5.6.2)
Using a Windows user with the same name on both OSes, with administrative rights. UAC is disabled (set to Never Notify).
Installed the Guest Additions, set the Shared Clipboard to bidirectional (actually uninstalled/reinstalled it a few times, no change). Mouse and screen resolution enhancements work fine.
The issue is that Shared Clipboard does not work neither way, at all.
(Copy and Paste behavior is also inconsistent, some freezes, does not release lock on the copied folder, does not handle overwrites but that's another story)
I am new to VBox but I guess attached log may help.
Please let me know if you need more info, I am out of ideas and found nothing useful on the subject for the OSes above.
Attachments
Test5-2023-01-13-01-56-58.log
(88.51 KiB) Downloaded 3 times
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: Win10 guest on Win7 host Shared Clipboard not working

Post by mpack »

What exactly are you placing on the shared clipboard? Only images and plain ascii text are supported. Not files, not rich text, and not COM objects such as Excel creates.

Also, are you conflating "drag and drop" with "copy and paste"? I ask because you seem to be discussing "shared clipboard" and "copy/paste" as separate features, when they are in fact two names for the same thing.
FeriM
Posts: 2
Joined: 13. Jan 2023, 01:30

Re: Win10 guest on Win7 host Shared Clipboard not working

Post by FeriM »

Indeed, I was trying to find a method to transfer files/folders between the host and the guest :)
Then let me see if I got this correctly:
Shared Clipboard is able to transfer simple text/images only, and no files/folders by design (I can confirm that doing Copy/Paste works with a piece of text/image in both directions, Notepad to Notepad and Paint to Paint).
Drag and Drop (which I mistakenly named Copy and Paste in my previous post) kindof works with files/folders (sometimes it freezes, handles not released, a rtf file is copied, but a txt file is not), overall the behaviour is unreliable.
Shared Folders (just added a transient folder), while not the most convenient, seems to work.
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: Win10 guest on Win7 host Shared Clipboard not working

Post by mpack »

In my experience, "Drag and Drop" is not there yet. And given how radically differently the various OS's work, I don't expect it to ever get there. I stick to shared folders when I want to exchange files with a VM. Shared folders at least have networking standards as a model to work from.
Cannobina
Posts: 8
Joined: 27. Apr 2023, 13:58

Re: Win10 guest on Win7 host Shared Clipboard not working

Post by Cannobina »

Hi mpack
In my experience, "Drag and Drop" is not there yet.
as my new and first settled VM ist now working and I try to figure out the limits of what is possible and what is not...

Do you mean that Drag&Drop is not a thing that should be used as it will never be something on what you can count on?

So we consider this as a function that would be nice to have but better skip it because it is not reliable (and probably never will be)?
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: Win10 guest on Win7 host Shared Clipboard not working

Post by mpack »

Yes, that was the opinion I was expressing. There are no cross platform standards for drag and drop, which means that communication between Windows and the billion flavors of Linux isn't ever going to be reliable IMHO. Even between different versions of Windows-Windows and Linux-Linux it's going to be dicey. Better to just accept that and move on - shared folders work reliably once you figure out how to configure them.
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