Network connection and audio problems

[kwhiz01]

I may be such a newbie that I have no business using Virtual Box but I am always trying to learn. Not that hard even if I am 75.

I have a Windows XP Pro, SP3 computer with AMD Athlon 64+ 3700 processer. I have a PCI ethernet board for my internet / network connection and a Real Audio soundboard/driver. I am running the current version of VB (3.0.6). The XP is the host computer and I have installed VMBox without any problems. When I try to install the latest pre-release version of Windows 7 as Guest, it installs fine and runs fine. However, I have no network or audio. In VB, I have the audio setup as Windows Direct Sound and Soundblaster 16. The networ is set up as NAT and PCNet PCI II and I have the network adapter enabled. What settings should I be using? Curiosity question: if my host computer is KWHIZ01 and SMITH workgroup do I use the same with the geust or use a different computer name and same workgroup?

Thanks for any help.

[Perryg]

I may be such a newbie that I have no business using Virtual Box but I am always trying to learn. Not that hard even if I am 75.

I have a Windows XP Pro, SP3 computer with AMD Athlon 64+ 3700 processer. I have a PCI ethernet board for my internet / network connection and a Real Audio soundboard/driver. I am running the current version of VB (3.0.6). The XP is the host computer and I have installed VMBox without any problems. When I try to install the latest pre-release version of Windows 7 as Guest, it installs fine and runs fine. However, I have no network or audio. In VB, I have the audio setup as Windows Direct Sound and Soundblaster 16. The networ is set up as NAT and PCNet PCI II and I have the network adapter enabled. What settings should I be using? Curiosity question: if my host computer is KWHIZ01 and SMITH workgroup do I use the same with the geust or use a different computer name and same workgroup?
Thanks for any help.

Before you start the guest open the setting and change the audio to the ICH AC97 controller.
Then change the network adapter to the IntelPro/1000 T Server. NAT should be used. You should also see the host network adapter in there and make sure it is selected.
At this point you should be able to start the guest and then see if you are able to get to the Internet.
Now for the sound, go to realtek.com (from the guest) and download the audio drivers and install them. Then you need to tell Windows to do an update. After that you need to reboot and it all should work.
For the curiosity question the computer names must be unique so no to making it the same. The group/domain should already be workgroup by default, so you should not need to change it.
If you are going to need to network these we can talk about that later after you have everything else working.

[kwhiz01]

Thanks Perry for your prompt reply. I made the suggested changes but still could not connect to the Internet. My input into VMBox Network settings for this virtual machine was as follows:
I checked the box for Enable Network Device; I set the adapter type as the Intel pro 1000T server. In the Attached To: box I had the choice of Not attached, NAT, Brigded adapter, Internal Network or Host Adapter and I selected Host Adapter.
On starting up the virtual macine, all went normal until I got an error message saying that it could not find the ethernet driver.

Were these settings right or what should I change?

Thanks again.

Karl

[Perryg]

You need to select NAT. The host-only will give you just that. If you need to have host connectivity from the guest then leave the setting and select the 2nd adapter tab and set it up for NAT. That way you will get the Internet and also be able to connect to the Host.

[kwhiz01]

Thanks again. Everything is working now.

Karl

[kwhiz01]

I guess my problems are discovered, one by one. I have good internet access, good sound but can not connect to my home network (two other computers, one is Vista and the other is the host computer running Win XP Pro, SP3. I have a cable modem (Linksys) connected to a 4-port router (Linksys wrt54gs). The host computer is connected via Ethernet cable as is the Vista computer. I know the Guest machine (Win7 RC) cannot setup a Home group unless the other computers are also Win 7. But I understand a network can be set up manually.
Before I spend a lot of time working on this, I wonder if there is anything else I need to do on the Win 7 Virtual Machine or virtual box settings to be able to setup the connection with the host computer? I read a lot of the Forum entries and also the Help files but in my current state of knowledge did not find them helpful. Do I need to install the Guest Additions for this or for any other reason?

I am really pleased with Virtual Box (and amazed!). But there should be a book "Virtual Box For Dummies"!

Thanks.

[Perryg]

If you are going to need to access other PCs on your network you will need to switch to bridged mode. Since you have a router that should not be a problem though, just change it is the guest settings and it should auto detect and assign you address from dhcp. You may after you get it to working though change the ip addresses of the guests to static if you are going to need to access them like in a web server application or something that requires you to have the same address all the time.

[kwhiz01]

Well I have tried but to no avail. So think I will wait until I get the real Windows 7 installed on my hard drive.
I did the following:
Changed guest setting to Bridged and left the Apapter 2 with NAT selected.
The host network connection list still showed host only connectio. And did show the Virtual Box Host Only In the Name column and said it was connected.
So I I highlighted that connection and the local area network associated with the host, right clicked and selected Bridge. It did install a bridge connection.
Restarted Windows 7 as a guest and still did not have a connection to my home network. The web conncetion works fine.
I checked my firewalls and it was set to allow. Shut the firewall down and spyware doctor, still did not help.

No big deal. I will just wait until Oct 22. I will check back just in case you have any further comments.

Thanks again.

Karl