Can't get to share folder on Windows Server 2003 guest

[hugoestr]

Hi, there,

I have been having trouble with this issue for the whole day.

I correctly configured the shared folders on my host computer and on the virtual machine. Yet when I go to the 2003 virtual machine, the share folders node on the My Networks section doesn't appear. I have changed networking card, and I have made sure that there is no firewall on the guest computer. I have even installed the latest version of virtual box, in the hopes that there was something wrong.

Any ideas of what else I should do? I really need to get access to my host computer files.

[BillG]

File sharing works the same way, whether the machines are physical or virtual. The file sharing system doesn't know the difference.

Are the machines in the same network? Are they in the same IP subnet? Are they in the same workgroup?

[MarkCranness]

Have you installed the Guest Additions (chaper 4 in the user manual)?
They are required to get the VB Shared Folders working.

Elsewhere, people have had success solving shared folder problems by:
- Reinstalling Guest Additions and rebooting the VM, or
- Making sure that the share name in the host has no spaces or upper-case letters in it.

@BillG: I too thought that VirtualBox shared folders must use networking to work, but they don't.
They do expose a network share name '\\VBoxSrv', but under the covers there is no networking or IPs involved, just a VBoxSharedFolderFS or VBoxFS device driver which allows the guest and host to talk to each other, likely thru shared memory.

[BillG]

I assumed that the OP was using normal file sharing since he was looking for the shares in My Network Places.

[MarkCranness]

OK, my bad. The VirtualBox Shared Folders do also appear in My Network Places, which is what got me (incorrectly) thinking they must involve networking.

[hugoestr]

Hi, there.

I will try the different suggestions. I will let you know how it went.

[hugoestr]

Okay, it is working now

The solution was to install VBboxGuestAdditions. The link was broken to the iso, I corrected that and then installed. At the next re-install, the share folders where there.

I think I know what has been going on.

I got a virtual hard drive where the person who created it must have run Guest Additions before it made a copy of it. So all of my machines that run off of copies of that hard drive work. Since this 2003 machine was installed by scratch by me, I needed to install Guest Additions, but wasn't aware of it.


Thanks!