Need help loading Windows XP on Imac.

[Adamj]

Getting Virtualbox running is fine, but trying to loads Windows is turning into a problem. I load the disc & everything is fine until it finishes loading, then asks you to 'agree' or otherwise to the terms & conditions by pressing F8. When I do this it sets off Itunes (preloaded onto the new Imac 27"). Obviously the Windows XP instructions are for a Windows machine. So how does one over-ride the F8 targeting Itunes & not allowing me to continue loading XP? Really appreciate assistance on this.

[rpmurray]

One holds down the fn key while pressing the F8 key.

[Adamj]

rpmurray, thanks for that, worked a treat.

[scarfond]

Hi,
I wish I had your luck installing Windows in my VM on my Mac. Whenever I launch the VM I get "cannot read from bootable medium. SYstem Halted." I have my Windows CD ROM inserted in my computer but no "installation wizard" seems to start, contrary to what is mentioned in the VirtualBox User Manual on page 21, Par. 1,7 "Running your virtual machine".

excerpt from User Manual, p. 21

Capture d’écran 2010-02-14 à 21.36.49.png (34.33 KiB) Viewed 1757 times

Can you please tell me how you do it?

[MarkCranness]

All the first run wizard does is attach a CD or DVD to the VM so that it can boot from that CD/DVD.

Most people attach the CD/DVD manually themselves, which is what I recommend you do.
See section 1.9 of the user manual, the paragraph starting: 'For now, if you have just created an empty VM...'

After you have installed the OS, go into Settings>Storage again and select the CD/DVD drive in the tree and set 'CD/DVD Device:' to 'Empty'.

If you really, really want to get the first run wizard back, you need to run a command at the command line (this was for 3.0.x, I haven't tested it for 3.1.x):

Code: Select all

VBoxManage setextradata "<VMName>" "GUI/FirstRun" yes

... you need to specify the full path to VBoxManage, or run the command in the VirtualBox install folder.

Code: Select all

"C:\Program Files\sun\VirtualBox\VBoxManage.exe" setextradata "<VMName>" "GUI/FirstRun" yes

Replace <VMName> with the name of your VM.