virtualbox.org

Can someone please explain \\vboxsvr\VM works? On a Ubuntu host and Vista guest, I set it up and it only works partially. A few problems I found. First, if I map \\vboxsvr\VM to something like Z:, some files can not be access through Z:. Secondly, if some program was installed on \\vboxsvr\VM and then executed there, it is tremendously sluggish compared to if installed on C:. Why is this?

I'm not exactly sure how it works. On the Windows guest side, the shared folder looks like a Windows' network share, but apparently it is not really. A VirtualBox filesystem driver (in the guest) talks to a VirtualBox service (or daemon?) on the host using shared memory (and simulated hardware interrupts I suspect).

Re: 'Some files can not be accessed':
On the host, the service (daemon?) is logged in as a particular user. If you are using the main VirtualBox GUI, then that user will be yourself. If you are using VBoxHeadless, then that user might be something else...
Can the VirtualBox service/daemon user access those files on the host? If it can't, then the guest will not be able to access them either.

Re: 'sluggish':
Perhaps because of the layers of software it has to go through: Guest -> Guest Device driver -> Shared memory -> Simulated interrupts -> Host Service -> Host filesystem and back again.