[SOLVED] Windows 7 x64 bridged network - I need help

[jonnybravo]

Hi all,

I've been battling unsuccessfully with getting bridged network working. NAT works fine, which at least allows some measure of connectivity to the guest; however, it does not provide the capabilities I need. I've worked with vmware a lot, and never ran into this issue there. I'm hoping it's just my inexperience with vb that is causing me the pain. Here's what my setup is:

ThinkPad W510
i7 Q720
16G RAM
Intel 82577LM Gigabit Network
Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6200 AGN
Windows 7 Pro 64
VirtualBox 3.2.12
Ubuntu10.10 (x64) guest

My problem is the following:

When I launch vb, and go to settings, and Network I see the Adapter 1 tab and the "Enable Network Adapter" checkbox is ticked. The "Attached To:" drop down box has NAT. Under advanced, the Adapter Type is Intel PRO/1000 MT Desktop (82450EM). The "Cable Connected" box is ticked. Starting up my VM, networking is enabled and I can connect to the internet for example. However, if I change the "Attached To:" choice to "Bridged Adapter", the "Name" drop down box has absolutely no choices. The only thing there is "Not Selected". Quick edit: I have tried making these changes with the VM running as well as with the VM off.

I've tried changing to a different adapter tab, a different adapter type, etc. No change I make adds any choices to the drop down box.

Any ideas?

If you need some more information, please let me know and I'll provide as much as I can.

Thanks in advance!

[Sasquatch]

Sounds like the Bridged Adapter filter didn't install on your Host. Reinstall VB and make sure that the Networking Support is enabled. Also make sure that all physical adapters are enabled.

[jonnybravo]

Thanks for the reply sasquatch. I've tried reinstalling it a number of times without success, both running as administrator and as regular user. Does the vb install write a log somewhere that I can take a look at to see if something is failing during network adapter installation? I've done a search through the default location (c:\program files\oracle\virtualbox) but didn't see anything log-like there. When the installation is running, I get a few popup dialogs asking if I want to install things (like Oracle USB adapter, Oracle network adapters, etc) and I allow the installation. However, looking at my device manager, the only vb network adapter I see is "VirtualBox Host-Only Ethernet Adapter". Even though the bridged networking uses the host machine's physical hardware, does it create/install a new adapter (like "VirtualBox Bridged Ethernet Adapter")? I wouldn't think so... my thought would be that it should detect the adapters I currently have on my system (the Intel adapters I listed in my original post) and show them for me to choose.

Each network adapter is functional (I'm connected to a wired network here at the office) and I'm able to successfully start and run the VM in NAT. It just seems like something is either failing to install, or failing to work. That installation log would be helpful . Is there a way I can install in something like a "verbose" mode to see what's happening?

Thanks again.

[Sasquatch]

Check the properties of the interface. On W7, open Network Center, click on the interface to get a status overview, then on the Properties button. You will get a list of services, protocols and adapters. That list should contain the VirtualBox Bridged Adapter service.

[jonnybravo]

There's nothing listed on either adapter for vb. There is a network connection there listed as "VirtualBox Host-Only Network". So, I tried to install the adapter service manually and received this error: "Filters currently installed on the system have reached the limit". I tried installing that adapter service on both the physical adapters as well as the vb one and got the same error each time.

One time during the installation (I've uninstalled/reinstalled a few times now) I got a message that said it would disconnect the network; however, it never did, and still nothing was installed.

Any other ideas? Especially given the error message I received?

Thanks!

[paul.ourada]

jonnybravo - Thanks so much for rescuing me from my mis-post! I think I may be able to return the favor!

For those of you who are wondering who I am, or what I'm talking about:
http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic. ... 20#p166149

I've had exactly the same issue as jonnybravo, going back to v3.2.10, on Windows 7 Enterprise, 64-bit. Of course this is a "managed" system, managed by our IS department. As a software developer, I get to have admin rights on my workstation. But I digress...

Anywho, after I read this thread, I tried out some of the suggestions offered, and I ran into the same "Drivers have reached their limit" type of message when I tried to install the VirtualBoxNetFlt driver into the network connection in the Control Panel. I have currently installed the MS Windows VirtualPC network filter and the VMware Bridge driver as well. I'm not using the VirtualPC VM feature, so I uninstalled that, and then was able to install the VBNetFlt driver into one of the the network connections, and they all magically showed up in the VirtualBox Network Adaptor dialog.

So the disconnect that I had, and what I couldn't find anywhere in the documentation was exactly how and where to install the VBNetFlt driver. I think I had seen somewhere in a forum, or in a Google search, that this needed to be done, but darned if I couldn't find exactly how to do it. Like jonnybravo, the message stating that network connections might go down briefly sorta led me to believe that the installer would do it for me. I even tried installing VB as an administrator (In Windows 7, you right click on the executable and select "Run as administrator" or some such) and that didn't get it installed.

Anyway, I think that for me, I have found a usable workaround. May not work for others, as they may need the VirtualPC operational. <paranoia>I wonder if this isn't some dodge by MS to keep other virtual machines off of the workstation?</paranoia>

Thanks again, jonnybravo and the others who've been posting in this thread!

[bryanc]

This sounds very similar to the problems I was experiencing.

I detailed in http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic. ... 25#p164725 how I solved the problem.

Maybe this will work for you too

Regards
Bryan

[jonnybravo]

All,

After a bunch of research, including pointers from members in this thread, I found and solved the problem. Here's what you need to do:

1) If you already have vb installed, you can either uninstall it and then install it again, or you can manually install the network service on your network adapters. Both work, but I suggest just uninstalling/reinstalling and letting the vb installer do the work for you
2) Enter the registry editor and navigate to here:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Network

3) Edit the MaxNumFilters key (on my system it was set to and change the value to something higher (I set mine to 14 in hex - which is 20 decimal)
4) Exit registry editor and reboot
5) If you uninstalled vb, install it again. If you didn't, you need to install the vb bridged network service manually to each network adapter you want to use bridged networking with:
5.1) Open network and sharing center
5.2) Choose "Change adapter settings"
5.3) Choose the network connection you want, right click on it and choose "Properties"
5.4) If you uninstalled/reinstalled after the registry edit, you should see a nice new service called "VirtualBox Bridged Networking Driver"
5.5) If not, then click the "Install..." button
5.6) In the new popup, click "Service" and then click "Add..."
5.7) You should see the virtualbox bridged networking driver.
5.8 ) Choose the driver, and then click "Ok"
5.9) If you don't see the driver... well it was probably just simpler for you to uninstall and then reinstall vb to start with
6) Run vb, goto settings/network. Change to Bridged and Voila! Your adapters now appear in the drop down box. Bridged networking is available for your guest OS

Thanks to those who pointed me to the right area in the registry. I have no idea why the limit of 8 filters was imposed by ms... seems a bit arbitrary to me.

Anyway, I hope this helps some people in the future who run into this problem and saves them a good number of hours of frustration!

[bryanc]

Good to hear that you solved your problem. I think that particular registry area

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Network

is probably responsible for a lot of problems that people have had in installing VirtualBox on Windows and its maybe an area that the installer developers could take a closer look at.

Mindless install / repair / uninstallation / install never sounds like the right fix unless some other action is taken. Although of course with Windows, anything is possible

Bryan