TurboTax 2010 Wonks the Window on XP
Posted: 19. Jan 2011, 19:07
I bought TurboTax 2010 in late November to do some tax planning before the end of the year. It installed and ran successfully on Ubuntu 10.04 and I completed my planning work. In December I upgraded to Ubuntu 10.10 and the corresponding version of VirtualBox, though I can't recall whether I used TurboTax on 10.10 . . . until yesterday.
Running VirtualBox 4.0.0 yesterday, I launched TurboTax 2010 from the XP Start menu. Immediately, the VirtualBox window began flashing between its "normal" size (1400x1036 on my 1600x1200 monitor) and a "small" (maybe 640x480) window. VirtualBox would shift between the two windows quite rapidly, perhaps 1 to 2 seconds each. I couldn't see exactly what was displayed in XP, partly for the rapid cycle time and partly because the normal or small XP window was only partially repainted each time. Interestingly, the XP behavior was mimicked in the preview panel of VirtualBox Manager. I couldn't catch up with XP to shut down with the Start|TurnOff... buttons, so the only way to calm the situation was with Close the Machine|Power Off the Machine. I did this twice and then shut down the computer went to bed.
This morning, I tried again, thinking a rebooted computer might help, but the behavior was the same. Wanting to be sure I covered all update bases before posting this, I upgraded to VirtualBox 4.0.2. Same normal/small window cycling with TurboTax. Everything else that I run in XP starts just fine.
I suppose I can uninstall and reinstall TurboTax, but I would appreciate any other guidance that the VirtualBox community can offer. Thanks.
Background: Attempting to move into Linux, I only use VirtualBox and Windows XP Pro SP3 for apps that have no Ubuntu alternative: TurboTax, QuickBooks, Microsoft Access 2003, Microsoft Office Visio 2003, and a proprietary Visual Basic 6.0 app. The XP installation is otherwise pretty bare, having only the Office baggage that comes with Access and Visio (I hope), and I run the Avira AntiVir anti-virus package.
HW: AMD, terabyte disk, 2GB RAM (1GB allocated to VirtualBox)
SW: VirtualBox 4.0.2, XP Pro SP3 (with MS updates through 1/19/2011), Ubuntu 10.10, TurboTax 2010 (updated through 12/22/2010)
Running VirtualBox 4.0.0 yesterday, I launched TurboTax 2010 from the XP Start menu. Immediately, the VirtualBox window began flashing between its "normal" size (1400x1036 on my 1600x1200 monitor) and a "small" (maybe 640x480) window. VirtualBox would shift between the two windows quite rapidly, perhaps 1 to 2 seconds each. I couldn't see exactly what was displayed in XP, partly for the rapid cycle time and partly because the normal or small XP window was only partially repainted each time. Interestingly, the XP behavior was mimicked in the preview panel of VirtualBox Manager. I couldn't catch up with XP to shut down with the Start|TurnOff... buttons, so the only way to calm the situation was with Close the Machine|Power Off the Machine. I did this twice and then shut down the computer went to bed.
This morning, I tried again, thinking a rebooted computer might help, but the behavior was the same. Wanting to be sure I covered all update bases before posting this, I upgraded to VirtualBox 4.0.2. Same normal/small window cycling with TurboTax. Everything else that I run in XP starts just fine.
I suppose I can uninstall and reinstall TurboTax, but I would appreciate any other guidance that the VirtualBox community can offer. Thanks.
Background: Attempting to move into Linux, I only use VirtualBox and Windows XP Pro SP3 for apps that have no Ubuntu alternative: TurboTax, QuickBooks, Microsoft Access 2003, Microsoft Office Visio 2003, and a proprietary Visual Basic 6.0 app. The XP installation is otherwise pretty bare, having only the Office baggage that comes with Access and Visio (I hope), and I run the Avira AntiVir anti-virus package.
HW: AMD, terabyte disk, 2GB RAM (1GB allocated to VirtualBox)
SW: VirtualBox 4.0.2, XP Pro SP3 (with MS updates through 1/19/2011), Ubuntu 10.10, TurboTax 2010 (updated through 12/22/2010)