Windows 8?

[stefan.becker]

Easy to solve: Wait for Windows 8 final and a VBOX Version supporting Windows 8.

[selden]

Unfortunately, that's not a solution for developers who are trying to get their code ready for Win8.

I don't see any mention of updates to the Additions in the release notes (which is disappointing) so it's not surprising that they still don't work.

[Sasquatch]

PS: I'am a german user. If you can answer in german, i will be happy. But if you answer in english, thats ok too.

This is an international forum. Only a small section is set for the German language. All other sections, like this one, have to be in English. Posts that do not comply with this rule will be removed. Topics failing to comply will be locked.

Unfortunately, that's not a solution for developers who are trying to get their code ready for Win8.

And what has the Guest Additions to do with your software? I've never heard of an application that depends on the virtualisation tools to be installed. You're just not content that VB doesn't have GA support for an OS that works in it (which they never tried to achieve, it just worked). Non-argument is fail.

[selden]

Among other things, the guest additions provide access to the host's OpenGL graphics hardware.
The software OpenGL implementation provided by Microsoft is, shall we say, less than adequate.
It's extremely slow and supports only v1.1 (which was defined in 1997), while modern graphics hardware supports v4 or later.
There's been a lot of progress in graphics support in the past 14 years.
That's the major feature that matters to me. I'm sure other people have other needs.

Granted, one can do a "bare metal" install and/or dual-boot insead of using a VM, but that obviates all the benefits that a VM provides.

[Sasquatch]

A VM provides a simple testbed and first-look experience. If you want anything else, like test your application with 3D, then a VM is not the right place. You may fix it for VB video, but in the mean time the application crashes when it encounters Intel, nVidia or ATi video drivers. Or worse, it crashes the Host. Something you'll never get when testing in a VM.
Some things just have to be done on bare metal.

[selden]

I'm not trying to debug graphics drivers. I am not writing code which depends on particular graphics chipsets. To first approximation, I don't even get upset when things crash. It's actually fun for me to get programs to do that: I'm a beta tester. I report problems that I find and then other people have the fun of trying to fix them.

Most of the applications that I beta test these days happen to be ones which will use all of the OpenGL graphics performance and features that are made available to them. To first approximation, the OpenGL drivers provided by the Additions are just another set of drivers to test against. Without the features provided by the Additions, the applications don't run nearly as well or as fast, making it harder to find other kinds of problems. One of the applications can't run at all under VirtualBox 4.1.2 + Win8Preview, since it can't get access to the shader hardware (yet) to do orbit calculations. *shrug*

Remember that the whole point of this thread is to discuss the features and problems encountered when using VirtualBox to support Win8 development. (At least it is for me.) There's no need to get upset or defensive because some features aren't available yet. They'll come when they come -- first in beta format and eventually fully functional. The sooner they're available, the happier people will be, of course. In the meantime, I'll just keep trying each new release to see what it does. (I haven't had a chance to try 4.1.4 myself yet -- after all, it just came out today. Hopefully this evening.)

[jdmulloy]

Among other things, the guest additions provide access to the host's OpenGL graphics hardware.
The software OpenGL implementation provided by Microsoft is, shall we say, less than adequate.
It's extremely slow and supports only v1.1 (which was defined in 1997), while modern graphics hardware supports v4 or later.
There's been a lot of progress in graphics support in the past 14 years.
That's the major feature that matters to me. I'm sure other people have other needs.

Granted, one can do a "bare metal" install and/or dual-boot insead of using a VM, but that obviates all the benefits that a VM provides.

Maybe you should demand a refund.

[selden]

Maybe you should demand a refund.

I have to admit that I really don't understand the negativity and snarky responses.

All I'm trying to do is report that things aren't working yet, but which "obviously" need to be working well before the official release of Win8.
I'm not demanding that they be made available right!!! now!!!!, just pointing out that a lot of people will gladly take advantage of the features as soon as they become available, and that it would be very helpful if beta versions could be made available well before Win8 finally ships.

Obviously the VirtualBox developers have a prioritized list of features which they are working hard to implement, and obviously that list is affected by Oracle's business needs. I would be very much surprised if getting Oracle's databases working under VirtualBox with Win8 Desktop and Win8 Server as both hosts and guests were not one of the many things they're working on, for example. That functionality is one of the (many) things needed for low cost but effective sales demos, and is likely to have a long lead time. One can hope that the Guest Additions are part of that process.

[selden]

On a more positive note, I was very pleased to see the appearance of both Windows 8 and Windows 8 x64 as options in the type of system to be installed under VB v4.1.4. I installed Win8 Preview from CD again. I mostly used the defaults, although I couldn't resist increasing the amount of memory to 2GB. The default virtual hard disk controller was SATA, which worked fine. It seemed to take a little longer than before, about 20 minutes instead of about 15. The install was to a completely different physical disk (one with an external ESATA connection instead of to the laptop's internal drive), so I doubt the difference is meaningful. Booting takes about the same amount of time: roughly 30 seconds.

[qwe12]

Hi, I recently downloaded virtual box 4.1.4.

I want to install Windows 8 on it. Everything goes smoothly until I get to the screen that's black with white letters and says that the OS needs to be restarted. However, when I click on "machine" in the upper left corner, and then select to "send the power button push" to the OS, it says that it's not possible to do this. I've tried closing the program and starting it again, but I still get to the "restart" screen, which then crashes if I leave it long enough.

Now, from reading this thread, it says that I must have a computer that enables hardware virtualization to fix this issue. However, my computer does not have this feature. Are there any work-arounds for installing this on a VM without VT-x?

Thank you very much for any help!

[selden]

Unfortunately, hardware virtualization support is required to run Windows 8 under recent versions of VitrualBox. We can hope that a software emulation might be available in some future release of VirtualBox, but don't forget that the emulation will cause a significant reduction in performance
EDIT: when compared to hardware support, that is. Of course, it's a big improvement over not running at all!

Please double check to make sure that hardware virtualization support really is not available in the BIOS of your computer. VT-x is Intel's version. AMD CPUs provide AMD-V.

(FWIW Microsoft's implemention of VM under Windows 8, Hyper-V, requires hardware virtualization support for all guest operating systems, not just the "difficult" ones.)

[selden]

Some more good news:
I was able to install the x64 version of v4.1.4 Guest Additions with no need to select Compatibility Mode.

VirtualBox virtual network shares work. (the shared folders feature)
Copy-and-Paste between guest and host works (I used it for the error message below; although I don't know if the Additions were needed for it).

However, the less-than-good news is that the graphics driver cannot be installed.
Win8 Device Manager --> Display Adapters --> VirtualBox Graphics Adapter --> Properties --> General (tab)
reports

Windows cannot initialize the device driver for this hardware. (Code 37)

Win8 Device Manager --> Display Adapters --> VirtualBox Graphics Adapter --> Properties --> Driver (tab) --> Driver Details
reports

Provider: Oracle Corporation
File version: 4.1.4.74291
Copyright: Copyright (C) 2009-2011 Oracle Corporation
Digital Signer: Not digitally signed

That last line explains why the graphics driver cannot be initialized.
Windows 8 x64 requires that all drivers be digitally signed.
Hopefully this can be fixed in the next VirtualBox update.

[stefan.becker]

http://www.blogsdna.com/2775/install-un ... rrider.htm

Not tested, but maybe this helps.

[Sasquatch]

Just a reminder for people trying to install the GA:

Windows 8 is NOT officially supported and the changelog of 4.1.4 did not mention any fixes for it. That things work now, would only indicate that the team is working on it, but are not confident enough in stating that it works. Full support will come in due time. Probably before the final is released, just like what they did with W7. Time will tell.

[stefan.becker]

http://www.blogsdna.com/2775/install-unsigned-drivers-on-windows-7-vista-with-driver-signature-enforcement-overrider.htm

Not tested, but maybe this helps.

No i downloaded win8 and installed the guest additions as admin with this tools. I choose the wddm driver or the guest.

It works (Mouse, VGA, Shared Folders).