Page 1 of 1

Shared folders refuse to work in XP guest (system error 53)

Posted: 3. May 2009, 15:02
by ErikG
Hi,

I have been searching Google and the forums and have found several people with similar problems, but none of the suggested solutions has solved it for me, so I post this.

I am running Windows XP Professional SP2 on a Debian Lenny 5.0.1 host. I have installed Guest Additions, shared a directory on the host, and yet when I type:
net use x: \\vboxsvr\xpshare
I get:
System error 53 has occurred.

The network path was not found.
"xpshare" is definitely the correct share name. Also, nothing relevant shows up in "My Network Places". When I had first installed Guest Additions, I noticed that the VirtualBox service was not running according to the Services applet in Control Panel. I started it manually and now it is running on every boot; still nothing. As far as I can tell, vboxsvr is not a valid host to the XP guest. I also unblocked "File and Printer sharing" in the Windows Firewall, thinking that might have to do something with it, but nothing. I have tried sharing the directory in the host OS both via VBoxManage and the GUI; no difference. Any ideas? I'd appreciate any help :shock:

Re: Shared folders refuse to work in XP guest (system error 53)

Posted: 3. May 2009, 15:14
by Perryg
The share name is case sensitive. Make sure that you type it correctly.
Also renaming the share can help.
You should not need to start any VBox services manually in the guest.
If none of this works then try a complete system reboot.

Re: Shared folders refuse to work in XP guest (system error 53)

Posted: 3. May 2009, 15:17
by ErikG
Thank you Perryg, the share name was correct and all but as usual, just after asking for help, I found the solution myself. :roll: The problem was that I had somehow gotten hold of an older version of Guest Additions that didn't work properly with my version of VirtualBox. After downloading and upgrading to the latest version, everything is fine. Thanks again and sorry for the useless thread.