virtualbox.org

I have a question regarding USB devices. Is it possible to use a USB WiFi adapter (or any other USB device) strictly on guest system only. I don't want to install this item on my host machine first. Both host and guest system are Windows XP. Unfortunately every information regarding this matter that I've found on the internet so far, requires a device to be installed on the host first.
I will appreciate any help.
Regards,
gordom

In theory yes, the item can be mounted in the virtual USB controller of the guest, in which case the host would not know much about it (the host has to know that a USB device is attached, otherwise the guest couldn't use the host to talk to it).

In practice some devices which are especially sensitive to performance latencies have difficulty working in a VM. Only by experiment can you tell if this case is like that.

Of course, if you are hoping for secrecy, the connection could in principle be logged - or perhaps even blocked - by the wireless access point.

Thank you for your answer. Regards,

gordom

I forgot to mention: most people find that an adequate solution is to let the host mount the USB wireless NIC, and access it from the guest using bridged networking. Even better is to use a paravirtualized (VirtIO-net) NIC, though that does require you to install VirtIO-net drivers inside the guest.

In this scenario you can either allow the host to use the wireless NIC as well, or you can go into the NIC properties on the host and disable all support options except the VirtualBox driver.