virtualbox.org

I am fairly baffled by the virtual networking support on a Win7 (RC 64 Ultimate) host.

The host is Windows 7 RC 64 on a machine with an Intel Core 2 Duo with hardware virtualization support. The wired LAN has four Windows hosts and a NAS that runs embedded Linux. These hosts all have gigabit integrated NICs, and are cabled through gigabit switches. The internet is accessed via a broadband router and a cable modem. There is also a networked printer I would particularly like to get to from the VMs.

Two Windows guest VMs are set up. One is XP PRO SP2, the other is Win7 RC 32. Both work fine for accessing the internet. Setup was a breeze. However, both guests seem very confused about dealing with the LAN. The manual isn't very helpful, in that it seems to refer to nonexistent things.

The Win7 guest can access the LAN, although the "\\hostname\path" must be manually typed into either the Win Explorer path entry directly, or into the Map Network Drive dialog. No hosts except the VBOX itself ever show up under networking in Win Explorer (or anywhere else). I haven't tried yet to configure the driver for the networked printer.

The XP guest can't see the LAN at all. This actually isn't surprising, given the virtual NIC is set up with an IP on a different subnet. I tried manually configuring it to use a fixed IP on the real subnet, but that didn't help. The Win7 guest was configured manually with a fixed IP on the same subnet as the LAN. IIRC, I had to do this to get access to the LAN.

(BTW, the manual claims a shared folders list will show up under networking in a Windows guest. In XP it does, in Win7 it doesn't. To map a drive letter in Win 7, the \\vboxsvr\etc. method is required)

If anybody knows how to access hosts on a LAN with an XP guest on a Win7 host, would appreciate hearing how it is done.

Switch the guests to use Bridged mode.
On Windows 7 and sometimes on Windows XP, It is necessary to map the VirtualBox shared Folder.
Open a command windows and use the following to map the shared folder:
Actually you have the guide to do these things in your VirtualBox program. You can click on help and then contents and it is all explained there.

Assuming you have installed the guest additions:
Replace sharename with the name you gave the share in VirtualBox. It will now show up in your file manager.
Do not use spaces or characters in the sharename.

@Perryg:

I apparently didn't explain in sufficiently short words or something. I have no problem dealing with shared folders. It is clumsy with a Win 7 guest, but works just fine with typed-in "vboxsvr" URIs. (Which I said in my previous post)

The issue I hoped to resolve is summarized in the final sentence of my post: "If anybody knows how to access hosts on a LAN with an XP guest on a Win7 host, would appreciate hearing how it is done." I still don't know how to do that. I particularly need to access the NAS from the guest.

Is the answer to that question "switch to bridged mode"? I had previously tried that, but bridged mode doesn't work at all. The manual says "...Finally, select desired host interface from the list at the bottom of the page, which contains the physical network interfaces of your systems." Well, NO it doesn't. The list is empty. If the manual explains somewhere how to populate that list, I would be pleased if somebody would point me there. Is it possible I need to start some service on the host (or the guest) that is needed to support populating this list? I think practically every service involved in networking is already running, but...

--Phil

Bridged mode is exactly what you must have to do what you are wanting to do.
The part that the named field shows nothing does concern me though. See screen shot on a typical setup for bridged mode below: When you installed VBox did you accept the defaults and allow it to install everything or did you select to not install something?
One thing that you can do and not mess up the already installed OSes is to try to re-install VBox by right clicking on the install and then left click on run as admin. Select repair when presented with an option. Make sure that you answer yes to any questions of installing something and then you need to reboot the host when completed.

Once you resolve the bridged mode the other thing that you will need to check could be a firewall issue.

When you installed VBox did you accept the defaults and allow it to install everything or did you select to not install something?

All defaulted.

One thing that you can do and not mess up the already installed OSes is to try to re-install VBox by right clicking on the install and then left click on run as admin. Select repair when presented with an option. Make sure that you answer yes to any questions of installing something and then you need to reboot the host when completed.

Did as instructed. No change.

My equivalent to your screen shot:


Note the only thing in the list is "Not selected".

The host device manager list is:


The manual states that a device driver must be installed on the host for bridged mode to work. Do I presume that the VBOX installer does this, or do I download and install that separately? Manual isn't clear on that. Where would I see the device driver? Under system devices, Microsoft installed a driver for the Virtual PC, but I don't see one for VBOX anywhere I know to look.

I thought about setting the guest subnet mask wide enough to include my router, but since the virtual router uses 10.x.x.x addressing, whereas my router uses 192.168.x.x addresses, I would need to set it to all 0s to do that. Don't want to do that. If I could persuade the virtual router to use 192.168.2.x for its subnet, I could set the subnet mask for the guest to 255.255.0.0 and then should be able to see the host subnet from the guest.

The actual network driver is installed with VBox.
Did you do a complete reboot of the host?
I have not experienced what you are having problems with on a Windows host.
Usually it stems form not installing a driver when asked during the original install or failing to reboot the host when the install is done.
You can however uninstall the VBox program, reboot the host and then install it again to see if it just missed the driver. Reboot after the install.
Your guest will still be picked up when you reinstall.
But be real careful watch it closely to see if there are any problems, and you should install by right clicking the install and left clicking run as admin.

By the way which version of VBox are you using?
Also have a look at this if you are using an older version http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/3654

I don't recall any messages when installing other than the usual Windows messages about untrusted provider etc.. I accept all of that.

Here is what I don't understand: You say that bridged mode is absolutely required. But, the Win 7 guest has no trouble accessing the local net using NAT. (The workgroup doesn't show up, but I can use URIs to reach all the hosts, including the NAS) Why does an XP guest require bridging, whereas the Win7 guest does not?

BTW, bridge mode shows nothing to bridge on the Win7 guest also. But, since I don't need it, the issue is more-or-less moot. For now, anyway.

On the XP guest, the device manager list has a suspicious item (problem device) that doesn't show up on the Win 7 guest device list:



I would not expect virtual devices to show up as problem devices. This looks suspiciously like the VBOX expects to find a PCI-E slot, which is nonexistent on my hardware. The NIC device to bridge to is on the MoBo.

You can however uninstall the VBox program, reboot the host and then install it again to see if it just missed the driver. Reboot after the install.
Your guest will still be picked up when you reinstall.
But be real careful watch it closely to see if there are any problems, and you should install by right clicking the install and left clicking run as admin.

I will try that to see if that works. Is it possible I need to set compatibility mode to something else?

You can however uninstall the VBox program, reboot the host and then install it again to see if it just missed the driver.

That did the trick! The host adapter showed up in the bridge list. I configured bridged mode, booted up the XP guest, and the entire workgroup (which includes the NAS) showed up under "My Network Places" in XP. It's now using my physical router for DHCP. Much better setup.

Much obliged for your time on solving this.

I will now switch the Win7 guest to bridged mode also.

By the way which version of VBox are you using?

3.0.8 r53138

I wouldn't think of using anything but the latest available version for working with something as new as Win 7.

Possibly, I may have started the trouble by installing 3.0.8 over the top of an earlier version. The clean re-install did the trick. Much obliged.