virtualbox.org

If wishes were fishes...

I add my vote for drag'n'drop too!

Although shared folders work fine, is a simpler way for ocasionally files transfer.

Regards.

I'd love to see this feature, but only if it works across platforms (ie GNU/Linux host to Windows guest, etc). Otherwise it would be confusing and inconsistent.

Also, there should be a way to turn it on and off per guest, to keep users from accidentally transferring files to the wrong VM when they have multiple guests running at once.

I find the shared folder clunky and annoying. I do design work and am constantly moving files between my Ubuntu installation and my virtual XP. the shared folder means I either have to make my design archives folder on Ubuntu the shared folder, or move everything twice.

Much worse is how incredibly slow the shared folder is. When in XP, if I drag something to the shared folder, I often have to wait for 30 to 60 secs for it to recognize it before I can let things go to copy over to it, same for simply opening the folder. In general it's annoying and a huge waste of productivity.

Drag and drop would be the last bit that would make VirtualBox PERFECT.

>wait for 30 to 60 secs

Something is clearly wrong with your setup. Here it takes like half a second to open any file.
Drop-n-drop won't help you in this case.

Good news: "Huihong Luo" (a developer) said he is working on Drag-n-Drop for Windows guests !

-Technologov

I never imagined that VirtualBox did not have drag and drop.

Once I had installed Windows 7 and Ubuntu 10.04, I removed by Parallels and VMWare files, only to be surprised that I could not drag and drop files to my new virtual systems, as I have been doing for years and years (I started with Virtual PC 1, but cannot recall if that was drag and drop).

I thought I was doing something wrong, until I came to this Forum and saw this thread.

Not having drag-and-drop is a really major deficiency. Almost hard to imagine why it is not there.
Like getting a car without a steering wheel.

Why do the developers not see that ?

I am sure I can find a work-around (the USB/flash disk suggestion in the thread was a clever proposal), but that is not the point.

I do not see how this can even be properly classed as released software when you cannot interface properly with the host (Mac) OS.

I truly hope this deficiency is quickly fixed.

Dr Trevor

bifurcation wrote:Much worse is how incredibly slow the shared folder is. When in XP, if I drag something to the shared folder, I often have to wait for 30 to 60 secs for it to recognize it before I can let things go to copy over to it, same for simply opening the folder. In general it's annoying and a huge waste of productivity.

that's an old xp bug, it happens with smb/netbios too (network neighborhood) not just shared folders.

I also experience a few seconds delay in the root of the shared folder, but then works fine.The folder I share have a very "high level in the folder tree" with many files structured in those folders, and that's probably taking a long time to build some file index. But that doesn't bother me, it's only like 5 sec .
What would be useful is ... drag 'n drop

Please read the user manual section 12.3.8: Long delays when accessing shared folders.

But if this so easy, why doesn't GuestAdditions installer doesn't do it?

Technologov wrote:But if this so easy, why doesn't GuestAdditions installer doesn't do it?

Because this is probably not entirely correct. Windows is not well-documented, and installing such workarounds can have unexpected side-effects.

+1 for drag & drop.....

I don't know if anyone has used this "workaround" for Drag'n'Drop before but I found it a lot easier than setting up shared folders.
I just create an .iso file using ImgBurn containing the folders/files I wish to share. Mount it into my default virtual player, DVDFab, then open/view the files loaded on DVDFab in VirtualBox and copy them from there.

Not as quick as Drag'n'Drop granted, but it does for me!

There is no way that building an ISO can be seen as equivalent to drag and drop.

Folks, drag and drop is something I don't see ever happening. Think about what a VM does.. it emulates hardware at a very low level. So suppose the low level mouse code sees (left click, mouse wiggle) somewhere on the VM screen, followed by (left release) somewhere on the host screen - how on earth does it know that this actually means to copy "guest\C:\Document and Settings\My Magnum Opus.doc" to "host\D:\FutureGlory"? And what mechanism exists to do the copy, that both OS understand? The drag and drop operation requires a far more intimate interaction and understanding of the context certainly with guests than I think VirtualBox - or any other VM platform - is capable of. Now if someone is claiming that VMWare or whatever already does this then I'd be fascinated to learn how, because I don't see a practical way. [ And - I'm also fed up reading ignoramuses with absolutely no technical understanding mention how surprised they are that this isn't done already. A lot of stuff in life must surprise them. ]

What might be possible is a 2-stage process. Drag to a toolbar icon within the guest. Followed by drag from a host widget to a destination. This would still require that handlers be written for every supported host and every supported guest. Even with the compromise, it's a lot of work... for a minor convenience. [ edit ] this amounts to an automatically created shared folder.

Edit:  And oh yeah... a one-stage drag and drop feature also implies a bidirectional conduit between hosts and guests in which files can be opened, copied, read and written behind your back even when there is no network connection established - and this is not even contained within particular folders. This has obvious malware implications.

VMware has excellent drag-drop.