virtualbox.org

I'm running VirtualBox in XP. (guest OS is Xubuntu, but that shouldn't matter) I connect to it over a LAN from another computer, running Windows 7 RC, using the Remote Desktop client. The connection gets randomly dropped. Sometimes it lasts 3 seconds, other times several minutes.

There are no errors in the VirtualBox log, it just says the connection was closed. On the client side, the following error pops up: "This computer can't connect to the remote computer. The connection was lost due to a network error..."

VNC, among other things, works fine between the XP and Win 7 machines, so there's nothing wrong with the connection. I tried connecting from another XP machine and it appeared to work fine. Also, I use port 8000, so there shouldn't be a conflict with the port already used by Windows. I wonder if Microsoft's enhancements to RDP7 messed something up? Anyone else experiencing this? Are there any other good RDP clients for Windows?

Network problems can usually be tracked back to the virtual network adapter.
Try setting the guest to use the IntelPro/1000 T server adapter and see if it works better for you.

I have either the same or similar issue with the Windows 7 rdesktop client.

In VirtualBox 2.2.4, I set it to accept remote RDP connections to the guest via the standard port. I can connect perfectly fine from the Linux box using the rdesktop client which comes with Debian etch. However, if I attempt to connect to it from my Windows 7 laptop remotely, entering in my Linux boxes DNS name, it provides me with an error message saying it cannot connect at all. My Linux box is on a private network and iptables is not in use or insmod'd into the kernel at all, so the port is not being blocked.

I am soon upgrading my Debian to Lenny w/ VirtualBox 3.0.2 soon, and will let you know if Windows 7 rdesktop client still complains and the exact error message as well. Also the Windows install package of VirtualBox does not come with the vbox-rdesktop client... I was going to use this as an alternative when connecting using my laptop, however this is not possible at the moment.

I just tested the RDP client of Win7RC as guest.
Opened a connection to Ubuntu 9.04 server (no desktop) While I did not experience any dropouts I did notice that both cores of the CPU went to max and pretty much stayed there and the data transfer to a terminal window had the net bandwidth maxed out as well.
None to impressive. I can VNC and RDP from Vista little to no CPU and very low bandwidth as well as other Linux and Windows XP clients. I suspect that this may have something to do with your experience as well.