VM launchable from the VB menu but not from the .vbox

[Fielding]

I ask for a link to general support to this type of problem :

I have two virtual machines that goes well from the VB window menu but don't open with the .vbox file.

When I click in the .vbox file the result is that opens the VB window menu.

Best Regards

[Fielding]

This seemed to me an interesting question.

What happens then ?

Seems that from the VB menu is executing something more that the vbox extension file.

What happen if I create a shortcut in the desktop from this menu ? It's supposed goes well....


Many of my problems seemed to arise from the fact of a change of the virtual machines to another pc. And obviously another hardware in the host. And even another operating system : windows 7 to windows 8.1

I will continue investigating. When I have an answer I will put here.

[mpack]

A shortcut to a VM is not the same as a .vbox file or a shortcut to a .vbox file. Double clicking a .vbox file (whether directly or via a link) causes that VM to be added to the manager - the manager window will open and show it.

When you use the "Create a shortcut on the desktop" for a VM then the shortcut is actually a reference to VirtualBox.exe, with the id of the VM to run as a parameter.

[Fielding]

Thanks a lot mpack !!!!

But why some vbox are launchable and others not ?

What is the criteria ?

[mpack]

I think I already explained that in my previous post. To my knowledge no .vbox's are "launchable". A VM shortcut is not a .vbox shortcut.

[Fielding]

But this is tremendly annoying or confusing for me because I have a lot of virtual machines linked in Goldmine by the vbox.
Usually goes well, and sometimes no.

Nevertheless. I wish a handshake with this "peculiar virtualbox program". I don't know why I assumed this behavior. I supposed trying VMWare.

Nevertheless. How to make the handshake ? . I have many virtualbox machines linked with Goldmine with the vbox file. I think I can substitute when I can for the VM shortcut obtained legally from the virtualbox main window interface.

Best Regards

[mpack]

I don't know what "how to make the handshake" means.

If you are asking how to create a desktop shortcut to directly launch a VM: you run the GUI, you right click the VM you want, and you choose "Create shortcut on desktop".

[socratis]

I don't know what "how to make the handshake" means.

s/handshake/connection

Goldmine is a CRM program. I guess customer's problems/reports are linked to specific VMs (vbox). Opening the "VM" (vbox) from within Goldmine should open the VM instead of registering the VM. I could be wrong in the interpretation...

There could be a solution using DDE, but I'm too old for that and I haven't used that trick in a long, long time.

[Fielding]

Thanks.
Handshake in my sense : reach a good solution or answer. Reach an agreement.

Forget then Goldmine. Why I can Iaunch some vbox files from its folder and others not ?

[mpack]

Forget then Goldmine. Why I can Iaunch some vbox files from its folder and others not ?

That question has been answered at least twice already in the above thread. I see no point in answering it again.

[scottgus1]

Not to try to conflict with Mpack's previously stated advice, but opening a .vbox file on a guest that is already registered does (is supposed to) start the guest.

Running your virtual machine
To start a virtual machine, you have several options:
• Double-click on its entry in the list within the Manager window or
• select its entry in the list in the Manager window it and press the “Start” button at the top
or
• for virtual machines created with VirtualBox 4.0 or later, navigate to the “VirtualBox VMs”
folder in your system user’s home directory, find the subdirectory of the machine you want
to start and double-click on the machine settings file (with a .vbox file extension).

On my host, double-clicking the .vbox file on already-registered guests does start the guest and does not open the main Virtualbox window.

Fielding, you will need to produce a list of which guests start via the Goldmine launch-the-vbox-file process and which guests fail:
• Do the same guests fail every time, or is the failure random? (If random it's a Goldmine problem.)
• If the same guests fail every time, browse to and doubleclick the .vbox file for the failing guests manually. Do they start consistently via a manual double-click on the vbox file? If so, Goldmine has the problem.
• If fail-in-Goldmine guests continue to consistently fail with a manual double-click on the vbox file, but the other start-well-in-Goldmine guests also start with a manual double-click, then there's a deeper problem.

See where you stand in this troubleshooting process and report back.

FWIW, the Windows command line registered for double-clicking a vbox file is:

Code: Select all

"C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VirtualBox.exe" "%1"

If for some reason "%1", which normally contains the path and name of the double-clicked vbox file, should actually be nothing, or maybe something wrong like a bad path, you'd get the main Virtualbox window instead of the guest window

Are you sure all the Goldmine guests are still properly registered in Goldmine - are the paths and file names still correct?

[scottgus1]

BTW, what exactly happens when you try to open a guest via Goldmine's launch-the-vbox-file process? Does just nothing happen? Or do you get an error message? If an error message, what is it?

[mpack]

On my host, double-clicking the .vbox file on already-registered guests does start the guest and does not open the main Virtualbox window.

It doesn't do that on mine. Double clicking the .vbox file for an already-registered guest gets me this :-

VMAlreadyReg.png (23.12 KiB) Viewed 2475 times

I agree that the manual passage you quoted does seem to say something different. In fact it seems to say something which is plain wrong.

[Perryg]

IIRC the reason this works/fails is due to file association in the host. I ran across that little rock and hard place a few years ago and all I needed to do was change the association to *.vbox to point to the actual program. Not sure what caused it to change though. It worked and I moved on.

That said though I don't really use the *.vbox file to start a guest any more so your mileage may vary.

[mpack]

"Actual program"? Here is the association currently set up on my Windows 7 host here at work :-

VBoxAssoc.png (28 KiB) Viewed 2469 times

Now as you probably know I only recently abandoned XP as host, so the Win7 install is relatively recent, as of course therefore is the VirtualBox software install, and this associaton is AFAIK the default one created by the MSI installer - it ought to be the same assocation the OP has. Btw, I know that my Win10 host at home also works this way.

Even if the OP had a different association, he seems to be saying that double clicking different .vbox files given different results. I just don't see how that could be possible.