Shared folders

Dubya · Post by **Dubya** » 20. Dec 2008, 13:27

Hi,

I've been trying to set up shared folders on Ubuntu, Vista and W7 (6956) guests without success (Windows XP host).
I have the Guest Additions installed but everytime I try adding a shared folder the OK button stays inactive so I can't set it up.

Any ideas why this is happening? I'm on version 2.1

Thanks!

Post by **Sasquatch** » 21. Dec 2008, 20:50

Does the name of the Shared Folder contain any white spaces? Don't use them, it's not supported and will only give problems. Best to use lower case characters only (a-z).

Post by **over_clox** » 23. Dec 2008, 14:55

I'm confused. Why do people need the shared folders feature anyways? It seems to be one of the biggest problematic features of VBox, right behind the shared clipboard, evident by all the fixes that seem to come out for it with nearly every single version. It seems to be a bit of a redundant feature that could be easily and reliably implemented with a standard network configuration and file/folder sharing like I do.

I've found that the best way to avoid problems with buggy features is to not use them in the first place. I'll never rely on something that causes countless repeat problems for people, especially a feature involving the integrity of files and file transfers. I can honestly say that I've never had a single problem with shared folders using VBox like this.

Post by **Sasquatch** » 23. Dec 2008, 15:38

over_clox wrote:I'm confused. Why do people need the shared folders feature anyways? It seems to be one of the biggest problematic features of VBox, right behind the shared clipboard, evident by all the fixes that seem to come out for it with nearly every single version. It seems to be a bit of a redundant feature that could be easily and reliably implemented with a standard network configuration and file/folder sharing like I do.

I've found that the best way to avoid problems with buggy features is to not use them in the first place. I'll never rely on something that causes countless repeat problems for people, especially a feature involving the integrity of files and file transfers. I can honestly say that I've never had a single problem with shared folders using VBox like this.

That is your opinion. But not everyone knows how to share a folder, or want to install additional packages/services (linux) to do the job. And not everyone wants to share the folder over the entire network (like in companies).

Post by **over_clox** » 24. Dec 2008, 04:03

True that, and I can understand scenarios where you wouldn't want to share a folder throughout a network, but it seems like it would be more common knowledge how to share folders and files over a network than through VBox's proprietary and somewhat buggy means of doing so for the VM, and that it might be easier to resolve some people's problems with shared folders by letting them know more often that there are other options out there to share files between host and guest systems.

Post by **Sasquatch** » 24. Dec 2008, 20:50

over_clox wrote:True that, and I can understand scenarios where you wouldn't want to share a folder throughout a network, but it seems like it would be more common knowledge how to share folders and files over a network than through VBox's proprietary and somewhat buggy means of doing so for the VM, and that it might be easier to resolve some people's problems with shared folders by letting them know more often that there are other options out there to share files between host and guest systems.

If VB would not have build the SF option, or remove it suddenly, there are a lot of users that will leave VB, just because of Shared Folders. VMWare has Shared Folders, MS VPC has it, almost all virtualisation programs for the generic consumer have it.