Switching apps while sharing folder shows "Windows" dialog?

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Mac OS X hosts.
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BillyRayPreachersSon
Posts: 5
Joined: 7. Jul 2011, 11:56
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows XP, Windows 7, Ubuntu

Switching apps while sharing folder shows "Windows" dialog?

Post by BillyRayPreachersSon »

I've noticed some odd behaviour when selecting a folder to share, but I'm not entirely sure whether it's a bug with VirtualBox, or a glitch with one of the many tweaks I've made to get OSX out of " Fisher Price 'My first operating system' " mode and into something that a power user can enjoy working with :), so was wondering if anyone with a more standard / less tweaked install of OSX could try this and see if they also get the same issue?

I've tried various searches in the bug tracker to see if this is a known issue, but searching for "shared folder" seems to bring back 35 pages of results - something that I don't really want to wade through, so just wanted to make sure than it affects 'normal' OSX installs before reporting it anyway.


The odd behaviour is that, while selecting a folder to share, if I bring another app into the foreground, and then bring VB back into the foreground, I see two file dialogs - the OSX one, and one that looks like a standard Windows file dialog re-skinned (note the icon placement and tooltips - "List View" and "Detail View").

The dialogs have also been moved, so that the OSX one (which still has focus), has been sent behind the "Add Share" dialog, while the other dialog is in front, but seems unable to recieve any mouse / key events (other than moving it with the mouse). Pressing Escape, or the clicking the Cancel button on the OSX dialog gets rid of both, returning things to normal.

It doesn't seem to matter how I switch focus away from VB, nor how I bring it back into focus (I've tried using Cmd-Tab, clicking other apps with the mouse, etc), the behaviour is always the same. It's also worth noting that the style of the extra dialog is identical regardless of the guest OS being used (my earlier comment about the "standard Windows file dialog" wasn't trying to suggest that it actually was a Windows dialog)

To confirm the steps needed to reproduce this:

- Launch any guest OS that has additions installed
- Choose the "Devices" menu, then "Shared Folders..."
- In the "Shared Folders" dialog, press the "Add folder" (+) icon
- Choose "Other..." in the "Folder path" control to bring up the OSX folder selection dialog
- Bring any other app into the foreground, then bring VB back into the foreground

I've only recently switched to using OSX as a host, having been a Windows user since time began, and I can't remember having seen any similar behaviour with the Windows version of VirtualBox... but then again, I can't honestly say that I switched focus away from VB while selecting a folder when running under Windows, either.

Any OSX users reading this want to see if they can reproduce it on a 'normal' install?
BillyRayPreachersSon
Posts: 5
Joined: 7. Jul 2011, 11:56
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows XP, Windows 7, Ubuntu

Re: Switching apps while sharing folder shows "Windows" dialog?

Post by BillyRayPreachersSon »

Would you believe it... the first thing I did after posting this was find another way of getting the odd dialog to appear. The steps are the same up to the choosing "Other..." in the "Folder path" control:

- Choose "Other..." in the "Folder path" control to bring up the OSX folder selection dialog
- Click "New Folder"

At this point, it doesn't matter whether you create a new folder or not... The odd dialog appears whether you choose "Create" or "Cancel".
rpmurray
Volunteer
Posts: 918
Joined: 3. Mar 2009, 00:29
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows 7, Mac OS X (various flavors)
Location: Between Heaven and Hell

Re: Switching apps while sharing folder shows "Windows" dialog?

Post by rpmurray »

Since you don't mention it:

A) What version of VB do you have installed?
B) What version of OS X are you running on the host?
C) What version of Windows are you running in the guest?

I know that for Windows users there are no differences between XP, Vista and Windows 7 and they are interchangeable and run exactly the same way, but on Macs the different OSes tend to have their own idiosyncrasies.
Last edited by rpmurray on 7. Jul 2011, 16:18, edited 1 time in total.
BillyRayPreachersSon
Posts: 5
Joined: 7. Jul 2011, 11:56
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows XP, Windows 7, Ubuntu

Re: Switching apps while sharing folder shows "Windows" dialog?

Post by BillyRayPreachersSon »

Odd - I must've removed the version information in one of my edits, as I thought I'd posted host & guest version information... Anyway, here you go:

Host OS: Snow Leopard v10.6.8, although I know the problem also existed when using v10.6.7.
Guest OSes: I've seen the problem running Win XP, Win 7, and Ubuntu 10, and even MS-DOS 6.22 (which has no additions), so given the latter OS, I imagine this is an OS-agnostic issue.
VirtualBox: I'm using v4.0.10 of VirtualBox, downloaded from the download page at www.virtualbox.org. I'm fairly sure, however, that I also saw the problem using v4.0.8.

Dan
Last edited by BillyRayPreachersSon on 7. Jul 2011, 16:29, edited 2 times in total.
rpmurray
Volunteer
Posts: 918
Joined: 3. Mar 2009, 00:29
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows 7, Mac OS X (various flavors)
Location: Between Heaven and Hell

Re: Switching apps while sharing folder shows "Windows" dialog?

Post by rpmurray »

OK, give me a few to do an install of XP and see if I can recreate what you're seeing.

Edit: Yes. I'm seeing the same thing you're seeing. The new dialog box is movable but none of the controls respond to clicks and it appears on my Mac to be slightly transparent.

I did this on a Mac that I have a clean install of OS X 10.6 that's been updated to 10.6.7 and has no tweaks on it yet. So it does look like this behaviour occurs on a normal install also.
BillyRayPreachersSon
Posts: 5
Joined: 7. Jul 2011, 11:56
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows XP, Windows 7, Ubuntu

Re: Switching apps while sharing folder shows "Windows" dialog?

Post by BillyRayPreachersSon »

Thanks for confirming that - I'll raise a bug now.

Ta!
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