Windows 8 Phone not recognised in Windows 8 virtual machine

[yorkshirespud]

MacBook Pro host OS X 10.8, with Windows 8 Pro 64-bit running in a Virtual Box:

I have a Nokia Lumina 920 Windows 8 Phone, and it does not register properly in the Virtual machine when I selected the phone USB device to be forwarded to the Windows 8 virtual machine.

The phone works fine in the native OS, i.e. If I plug in the phone, it can be 'seen' fine by the Mac version of the Windows Phone companion software for syncing the phone etc.

When running Windows 8 in the Virtual Box, if I choose 'USB Devices/Nokia Phone' to forward the phone to the virtual machine, the phone disappears from the Host OS, and appears (partially) in the Windows virtual machine as expected.

However, the Windows 8 Phone companion app says it can't see the phone.

On closer inspection, looking in the Windows Device Manager, I can see that the phone appears in the USB device list as 'USB Composite Device' with a yellow questaion mark and an error code 'Incorrect function' or something similar.

Is VirtualBox not 'fully' forwarding the phone/USB to the Virtual machine in some way?

Any help appreciated, thanks.

[yorkshirespud]

I found the solutions to my problem, which is now fixed! My Virtual Box instance of Windows 8 can now see my Windows 8 Phone when plugged into the Mac and USB forwarded.

They key was to simply turn on 'USB 2.0' support in the Ports setting section of the Virtual machine configuration. It would appear the WinPhone is a USB 2.0 device, and doesn't work properly without this being turned on.

There is a caveat to this - USB 2.0 support is not enabled in Virtual Box by default, and when you attempt to switch it on, you are informed that you must first download and install the 'Virtual Box Extension Pack' first before is will work. I duly downloaded and installed the extension pack, turned on USB 2.0 support, and now everything works!

I can sync the WIndows 8 Phone inside the Windows 8 virtual machine, and more importantly I can deploy Windows 8 apps built in Visual Studio 2012 to the physical phone as well.

Hope this helps!

[noteirak]

Thank you for reporting back, I am sure we'll see few of these in the coming times.

[rford]

This was my issue and your solution worked for me. Thank you for posting!

FWIW I had to install the extension pack in order to enable usb 2.0.

[hurppi]

Thanks, had the same problem and this solved it!

[seam0nster]

Have the same problem, Installed extension pack, Enabled USB 2.0, cannot start VM while usb 2.0 is enabled (works fine if I disable it.)

Error:

Failed to open a session for the virtual machine Windows 8.

VD: error VERR_NOT_SUPPORTED opening image file 'C:\Users\xxxx-01\Documents\Windows 8\Windows 8.vmdk' (VERR_NOT_SUPPORTED).

Result Code: E_FAIL (0x80004005)
Component: Console
Interface: IConsole {db7ab4ca-2a3f-4183-9243-c1208da92392}

Any suggestions how to fix this anyone? I've exhausted myself searching for a solution to this specific problem.

[loukingjr]

Have the same problem, Installed extension pack, Enabled USB 2.0, cannot start VM while usb 2.0 is enabled (works fine if I disable it.)

Your problem has nothing to do with the previous posts. Their Windows 8 phones weren't recognized by their guest. Your VM won't start with USB 2.0 enabled.

Was your guest (Windows 8.vmdk) created with VMWare originally? If so you would have to remove the VMWare tools.

[seam0nster]

Your problem has nothing to do with the previous posts.

Quite right, sorry about that. Although I will thank you for the advice, but continue to follow up in a more appropriate thread.