virtualbox.org

I want to run Windows Photoshop in VBox on my Mac but would like to launch it direct from an icon on the Mac screen without manually starting VBox first.

I know that I can write a script using the command line VBoxManage startvm to start XP and also that I could 'dedicate' XP to Photoshop by putting it in the 'Startup' folder. Alas, I want to use XP for a few other things too (launch 'Office 2000?) and am looking for a hack/commandline/kludge/whatever that will start XP passing Photoshop's address to it, all in one go, for this specific use.

I think VMWare can do this but don't know enough about it to try to adapt it to VBox.

Any ideas?

Could you use different VMs? If you have the space that may not be difficult. You can all have them use the same folder too on the mac

Please search the forum. It's been asked before. AFAIK, it's not possible to open a file from the Host on the Guest directly. You have to open it from the Guest.

Please search the forum. It's been asked before.

Did that and should have said so, maybe eliciting help with the more focussed search terms I should have used.

Saquatch, it looks like I'ill be working on the basis that you're right, and will experiment with other ways to ease my access to the Windows apps, such as brycesteiner's** suggestion.


**Thanks.

If you've got 4GB on your host and plan on running photoshop in your guest, I would recommend increasing the memory on the guest to at least 1GB. Photoshop is a memory heavy application.

Because of this Photoshop also provides you with configuration options on how much memory you allow it to have. You should also try tweaking these and perhaps putting your scratch disk on something that has fast IO.

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/322/322829.html


Not sure if this is going to help under VBOX...but I know if I was running photoshop on a WinXP install with only 512m natively, it would still be crawling.