virtualbox.org

I'm not sure my subject line explains what I'm trying to do:

At long last, I have convinced my parents that perhaps running Linux for their basic computer-related things is a good idea. They essentially only need the web and email and some basic photo editing stuff, but of course they buy a new computer every 2 years because "this one is just too slow these days." I've tried to tell them that's because they're clicking on every attachment that their friends forward. "This is hilarious!" click. "You gotta see this one!" click. Vbs. Exe. They don't understand the difference between a vbs file and a jpg.

They've been resistant to using Linux because they're afraid to try something new. They think they won't be able to understand how to use Linux, and they're convinced it's "too difficult."

My thought, having seen how well XP runs under Linux, is that perhaps I could simply set it up so that when the computer starts it automatically starts VB with a fullscreen, maximized XP session going. My parents would probably go for that, since it would (to them) appear for all intents and purposes to be the real thing. But should they get a virus or whatever, instead of the agony of my reinstalling everything or their feeling "it's so slow so it's time to upgrade"...I can just reinstall a VB image clone and all will be fine again.

The problem is that I don't know if it's possible to set it up so that the computer will just run through its boot and then automatically end at a Win XP window. If they have to start everything each time, they'll be less interested.

Can VB do this? Any way to accomplish this if this isn't possible out of the box?

Sure. Create a launcher that runs at boot and use the VBoxManage startvm to open the VM.
But remember that they will still need to shut it down manually and then someone will need to shut down the Linux OS. So this will not be totally transparent to them.

Perryg wrote:they will still need to shut it down manually and then someone will need to shut down the Linux OS

I'm not a Linux user, but perhaps it is easy to run a cron job which shuts down the Linux machine, depending on the result previously returned by this command ?(asumming the VM name is "WinXP"):

VBoxManage showvminfo "WinXP"

thesun wrote:Can VB do this? Any way to accomplish this if this isn't possible out of the box?

Yes but your not dealing with the real issues, educate them or take admin control away and only give them less then minimal rights to do what they need to do. a VBox solution is not going to work the way you want, sandboxie might.

Hmmm. Right, the shutdown part would be harder. I don't know if they'd be up for the double logout.

I don't need it to be totally transparent. I just need it to be so rock simple that they won't gripe about it or feel threatened that they have to use a different system.