Miracast/Wifi Display from within Windows Server Guest?

Discussions about using Windows guests in VirtualBox.
Post Reply
Kumba
Posts: 44
Joined: 2. Aug 2011, 05:48
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: WinNT4, Win2k, Win2k3, Win2019, Win11, Devuan, OpenBSD, MS-DOS 7.10, NW312, NW42SP9, NW65SP8, OmniOS

Miracast/Wifi Display from within Windows Server Guest?

Post by Kumba »

I am trying to use Miracast/Wireless Display from within a Windows Server 2012 R2 Guest (not a host) to a Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter attached to my television. Thus far, I cannot get this crazy setup to work. I have a wireless USB adapter attached to my host machine, being passed directly through to the guest (the host, running an older Windows release, doesn't even have drivers for the USB wifi loaded, so it can't see it other than as an unknown USB device). In the guest, I brought up the charms menu and selected "Devices" -> "Project", but Windows states that I cannot project my screen and offers no usable help other than to reinstall video drivers.

I'm making a guess here, but can a Windows Guest use Miracast? If not, what's the limitation? Is it the VBox Video Driver? Or is there some other step I've yet to do?

Tried searching Google, but their algorithm has become fixated on my keywords and really only wants to return results linked to the fairly-recent (~2016) issue of Miracast not working on a host machine running the VBox hypervisor due to some quirk with the VBox Bridged Networking Adapter. That issue was apparently fixed already, but I cannot convince Google to return any other usable results.
Kumba
Posts: 44
Joined: 2. Aug 2011, 05:48
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: WinNT4, Win2k, Win2k3, Win2019, Win11, Devuan, OpenBSD, MS-DOS 7.10, NW312, NW42SP9, NW65SP8, OmniOS

Re: Miracast/Wifi Display from within Windows Server Guest?

Post by Kumba »

I finally figured out how to get the thing to connect to the display adapter over WiFi Direct, but it looks like the show-stopper is The VBox Video driver does not support projecting the screen or such. Once you connect to the device (Devices and Printers, Add Device), it'll prompt for a PIN, so a glance at the TV and the PIN will be there. Once input, the TV indicates it's trying to connect to the PC, but I assume this is where I am supposed to go to "Devices -> Project" on the charms bar and complete the connection.

On the upside, I found a critical bug** in VBox that outright crashes the hypervisor. Progress! (not)

**Edit: See Ticket #16957
Post Reply