Sharing Folders (VM to Host)

[jason777]

Okay, I know for all of you experts this is child's play. My question is this... How do I set up a folder to share files from my VM to my Host? My host is Vista 64... My VM is XP SP2... Every time I've asked this question in other places, the response I got was one assuming that I already knew how to do it (very vague in other words). If someone would be so kind, I need it explained as to a child.. LOL.. I am quite computer savvy so its not that, but I've never set up a home network before. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'd be able to do it with 2 actual pc's. But for some reason, I can't figure it out from the VM to the host. Thanks in advance!

Jason

[Perryg]

For you to be able to do this the host and the guest would need to be able to see each other.
Bridged would make this happen, but if you do not have a router then you would need to use Host-Only mode.
Since it shows you using Windows as host and guest all you need to do is setup file sharing in both and be in the same work group.
Then you can simply go to my network neighborhood and select what it is you want to map.
Of course they both would need to be running.

[jason777]

And I guess thats what I meant by the type of answers I've been getting. What I need is step-by-step... I have a router. I was able to ping the host from the guest but not vice versa.. I need:
Step 1: Do this
Step 2: Type exactly "this" here
etc, etc

Thanks for the help though.

[BillG]

This really has nothing to do with VirtualBox. It is a straight Windows file sharing question. If you had two physical machines you need to do exactly the same things.

If you can ping from one machine to the other your network connection is OK. Ping working in one direction and not the other is probably a firewall problem.

Are the two machines in the same workgroup? What do you see from My Network Places in the XP guest? If you can see the Public folder of the Vista machine, simply put the files you want to share in Public. If you can't, have you enabled public sharing in Vista?

If you can't see the Vista machine, make sure that Netbios over TCP/IP is enabled on the host NIC and that the computer browser service is running on either the host or guest.

[jason777]

Ok. Here's where I am now.. I can't see anything at all in My Network Places on the xp guest. I also can't see the guest from the host. However, I assume that I have connectivity since the guest is using the host for an internet connection. I have turned on folder sharing in both the guest and host and have designated folders to be shared. Still nothing.

[jason777]

I just found out something else rather interesting. Apparently I have the network set up entirely correctly on the host. I just plugged up my other laptop, clicked My Network Places, and in 2 seconds was easily sharing files between the 2 pc's. What I have is clearly a problem in the configuration of the VM. Any ideas?

[mpack]

My preferred way to get it working would be :-

(1) To confirm that you have a working "Host Only Ethernet" connection, runs the "Command Prompt" on the host, and at the prompt type "ipconfig"<enter>. That should give you information on a couple of network interfaces on the host, but it should include a couple of line "Ethernet adapter VirtualBox Host-Only Network", and a couple of lines later is confirmation of the IP address it uses: 192.168.56.1.

(2) If you haven't already done it, access properties for one or more host folders, enable sharing for those folders. Give each folder a "Share name" that is simple, i.e. no spaces or punctuation. Keep it short, letters only.

(3) Add a second network card to your guest, select "Host Only Adapter" as the network type.

(4) Start the guest, when booted open an explorer window (not internet explorer).

(5) In the explorer menu select "Tools|Map network drive". In the folder field of the dialog that appears, carefully type "\\192.168.56.1\SHARENAME", replacing "SHARENAME" with the name you assigned to a host shared folder. Repeat as required for any other folders.

I'm not sure if host and guest need to be in the same workgroup when you access a share with a static IP address like this, but it would do no harm to do it anyway. On both host and guest access "My Computer|Properties|Computer name|Change..." make sure that both PCs are in workgroup mode, with the same workgroup name.

[ps. These instructions are for XP (host and guest). I don't use Vista, don't know if it has moved things around or renamed them. Up to you to work things out if so. ]