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Starting guests on Windows with NO windows at all...

Posted: 3. Dec 2008, 20:36
by mr-rick
Hi...

I've been trying create virtual guests with absolutely NO windows. I can use the -vrdp but that still pops up a silly window with:

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VirtualBox Headless Interface 2.0.6
(C) 2008 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
All rights reserved

Listening on port 3389
I don't even want this window. I've tried:
  • cygwin - can't start Vbox from cygwin bash shell. In fact, the bash shell doesn't even know about Vbox and cannot list configured VMs.

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    $ VBoxManage.exe list vms
    VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version 2.0.6
    (C) 2005-2008 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
    All rights reserved.
  • converting a perl script to start it into a service
  • using AT command under windows
The only thing that even works a little bit are some shareware/freeware window hiding programs.

I suspect the problem has more to do with Windows than with Vbox, but is there any way to achieve this?

Rick

Posted: 3. Dec 2008, 21:29
by Sasquatch
You might want to check the service topic that's a sticky in this forum.

Posted: 3. Dec 2008, 23:42
by mr-rick
Doh! Thanks.

Posted: 27. Dec 2008, 20:46
by dolzenko
why not just?

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start "" /b VBoxHeadless -startvm "VM_Name" -vrdp=off

Posted: 27. Dec 2008, 22:19
by Sasquatch
dolzenko wrote:why not just?

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start "" /b VBoxHeadless -startvm "VM_Name" -vrdp=off
Because that will leave a command prompt running. Closing that prompt will close the VM.

Posted: 28. Dec 2008, 14:07
by TerryE
Yup, a -systray option would be great for windows systems, but so far this hasn't been seen as a priority by the Dev team.

Posted: 28. Dec 2008, 14:44
by baf
Take a look at http://www.turtle.dds.nl/run/ its a program to start something without a dos box
or this one looks easier to use http://www.commandline.co.uk/chp/

Posted: 28. Dec 2008, 18:44
by dolzenko
Sasquatch wrote:
dolzenko wrote:why not just?

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start "" /b VBoxHeadless -startvm "VM_Name" -vrdp=off
Because that will leave a command prompt running. Closing that prompt will close the VM.
In short - no, it wont, you can safely close the prompt from which the command was issued
Starts a separate window to run a specified program or command.

START ["title"] [/Dpath] [/I] [/MIN] [/MAX] [/SEPARATE | /SHARED]
[/LOW | /NORMAL | /HIGH | /REALTIME | /ABOVENORMAL | /BELOWNORMAL]
[/WAIT] [/B] [command/program]
[parameters]
...
B Start application without creating a new window. The
application has ^C handling ignored. Unless the application
enables ^C processing, ^Break is the only way to interrupt
the application