virtualbox.org

Hey all, I've installed Windows XP via virtualbox mainly for using MS Office. Is there an easier/faster way of accessing MS Office directly, maybe even integrate it in the host OSX, so that double clicking a .doc file will open it in XP's Office? Other suggestions?

Thanks a lot..

You could get MS Office for OS X from Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/O ... fault.mspx) for the fastest access to MS Office.

Or use openoffice.org - it has successfully replaced any Office apps for me (although your needs may be different than mine)

How technically proficient are you? Could you contemplate a wild goose-chase, with a small possibility of goose at the end?

I don't know if this would work, but it might:

Does VirtualBox provide an OSX version of rdesktop-vrdp, or does anybody else provide an OSX version of rdesktop?

rdesktop supports 'Seamless' mode (not the same as VirtualBox seamless mode), whereby a window running on the RDP server (the guest) is pulled out of the guest window and displayed on the host display the same as a host program.
To make this work needs a version of rdesktop that supports seamless, a driver installed on the guest to tweak RDP to allow seamless, and maybe a bit if mucking about with scripts on the host.

A script on the host starts uses rdesktop to connect to the guest, passing a command line to run, and the guest program is then displayed as a window on the host. If the guest has Shared Folders access to the host's files, perhaps scripts or suchlike on both could arrange for the guest program to open with the filename parameter passed in from the host.

rdesktop here: http://www.rdesktop.org/
SeamlessRDP here: http://www.cendio.com/seamlessrdp/ ... which has an example of how to run the guest's notepad.exe in a window on the host.

Just use OpenOffice.org for Mac OS X. Why not?

Thanks everyone for your comments.

frenzy_usa: MS Office for OSX doesn't support right-to-left editing, which I need.
jbdavidbakr, davefilms: as a part of my work, I get a lot of MS Office documents. Open Office is very nice by itself, but doesn't do a very good job importing those documents.
MarkCranness: Thanks a lot for the detailed explanation, if I had the free time, I would have definitely try it. I guess I'd have to just use it at it is...