Drag and drop operation from guest to host failed

[Simple07]

The drag and drop function is failing on 32bit Windows 10 RS2 15025 installation on VirtualBox-5.1.15-113242-Win, Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-5.1.15-113168 and VBoxGuestAdditions_5.1.15-113231. The Host is 64bit Windows 10 RS1 1607 Build 14393.693.

On attempt to drag and drop a small text file from the Guest Desktop to the Host, the operation fails and the below error appears.

Drag and drop operation from guest to host failed.

Current drop operation still in progress.

Result Code: E_FAIL (0x80004005)
Component: GuestDnDSourceWrap
Interface: IGuestDnDSource {dedfb5d9-4c1b-edf7-fdf3-c1be6827dc28}
Callee: IDnDSource {d23a9ca3-42da-c94b-8aec-21968e08355d}

And on attempt to drag and drop a small text file from the Host desktop to the Guest, I get a stop sign and the guest Windows 10 RS2 15025 becomes unusably lagging, with the VirtualBox Guest Addition Tray Application consuming huge amount of CPU resources. This slow down is not experienced when attempting to copy from Guest to Host.

However, copying text from the Guest and pasting it to a document on the Host and vise versa works!!

This problem has also been noticed in previous Windows 10 RS2 Creator Update releases and on earlier VirtualBox releases.

[scottgus1]

Being that this is an insider preview install, this probably better resides on VirtualBox on Windows pre-releases

FWIW, drag-n-drop is a different mechanism than shared clipboard.

FWIW2, keep those Virtualbox test build installers, they'll disappear off the Virtualbox website and you'll need the installer exe if your OS's MSI system goes belly-up when trying to uninstall the test build.

[socratis]

Being that this is an insider preview install, this probably better resides on VirtualBox on Windows pre-releases

Done.

[Simple07]

FWIW2, keep those Virtualbox test build installers, they'll disappear off the Virtualbox website and you'll need the installer exe if your OS's MSI system goes belly-up when trying to uninstall the test build.

Can you elaborate on this part "you'll need the installer exe if your OS's MSI system goes belly-up when trying to uninstall the test build" I am not sure I understand it. Do you mean I will not be able to uninstall the Operating System or VirtualBox or what?

[scottgus1]

The installer for Virtualbox is really a Microsoft-based program that uses the MSI subsystem in Windows to install Virtualbox. Lots of programs are distributed using Microsoft MSI installers. As best as I understand it, Windows keeps a copy of the MSI component of the installer file to run the uninstall command that can be run from Windows' "Add or Remove a Program". An upgrade of Virtualbox involves running the backed-up MSI component to do an uninstall.

Sometimes the MSI subsystem goes south and loses the backup copy of the MSI installer. In such a case you'd need to run the installer downloaded from the website to do the uninstall or to unpack the MSI component from the installer and tell Windows where the unpacked MSI is. It doesn't happen often, but when it does happen you just go to where you have saved the installer, or you go download it again.

Well, test builds of Virtualbox are not kept for long, just until the next even-numbered release version comes out. Example: Test builds numbered 5.1.15 (test builds are always odd-numbered) will be deleted off the website when 5.1.16 comes out. If you're running that test build, and the MSI subsystem goes south, you'll need the 5.1.15 installer to upgrade. If you lose the installer, and 5.1.16 has come out, then you will not be able to download the 5.1.15 installer to clean up the MSI subsystem easily, and will have a messy problem to uninstall Virtualbox one registry key at a time.

[Simple07]

I noticed that every time I install a new VirtualBox release, it starts by removing the existing one first. Hence, I actually keep a copy of the currently installed version "GA or Beta/Test"; because of such issues. I also keep some other interesting (even number) releases.

What I thought by saying (keep those Virtualbox test build installers), is keep all the ones I used whether installed or not; it would have been every version!!

Thanks for the clarification.

[Simple07]

I have upgraded to Windows 10 15046.0.170224-1700.RS2 on VirtualBox-5.1.15-113680-Win, Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-5.1.15-113673 and VBoxGuestAdditions_5.1.15-113648. Initially I was able to drag and drop from Host to Client desktop or from Client to Host but not both ways. I tried reinstalling the VBoxGuestAdditions, to no avail.

However, having removed the VBoxGuestAdditions through Control Panel, rebooted and reinstalled VBoxGuestAdditions_5.1.15-113648 again, Drag and Drop is working both ways now..

[socratis]

I believe that this is happening with other Windows builds, even the official released ones; an in-place update fails, but a remove/re-install works. I think I've seen in mentioned before in the non-pre-release Windows forums.

[Simple07]

I think you are referring to the Windows upgrade process itself that fails, I encountered that few iterations back. But that is not happening in my case, the past 4 upgrades were all successful. It is some Windows functionality that was not working properly (like drag and drop). But I always extract the UUP folder and create an ISO to perform another fresh upgrade as well. I similarly compare with VMware Workstation.

The difference is that in the case of Windows/VirtualBox upgrade, the pre-installed VBoxGuestAdditions_5.1.15-113648 are utilised while in the case of a fresh Windows installation VBoxGuestAdditions_5.1.15-113648 is also freshly installed. While they are the same version, it takes un-installing and re-installing to work properly. The wonders of Windows !!!

The past couple of Windows releases do NOT have watermark and this particular one seems to be very good. MS have blocked new features development and are focused on bug fixes, also an RS3 build is already on the server. The final release must be any time now.

[Simple07]

Windows 10 15048.0.170228-1522.RS2 on VirtualBox-5.1.15-113680-Win, Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-5.1.15-113673 and VBoxGuestAdditions_5.1.15-113648 seems to have gone back to the old ways. Occasionally freezes on startup and the issues of Drag and Drop is only working from Host to Client desktop or from Client to Host but not both ways.