virtualbox.org

Hello Everybody

As the title says, after having install the guest additions/shared folder, it turns out that the guest (Windows XP) takes a long time to startup (i didn't encounter that problem before installing the guest additions). To be more precise, i first have a blue screen (of death?) for 3 (perhaps 4) minutes before the icons on the desktop appear. I read on the forum that some people noticed slow transfert between guest (Windows XP) and host (MacOS), but this is not my case (the transfert works great). It's just the startup of the guest that is, my opinion, much too slow. Just wondering: does anyone got the same trouble, and is there a way to fix it

Thanks in advance for your help.

Have a great day and take care,

Jeff_59

post a compressed vbox.log file of your XP guest. it shouldn't take anywhere near that long to boot.

IMHO Windows Update is a more likely reason for a VM suddenly getting very slow. If in doubt, look at the guest's task list.

Hello,

Thanks a lot for your posts and sorry for my late answer.

@mpack: I know i shoudn't but Windows Update has been disable.

@loukingjr: attached to this post the vbox.log file. Please note that i edited the file on rare occasion to hide some personnal informations such as ID
for privacy reasons. Of course, i would be happy to send you the file privately if necessary.

Thanks again for your assistance.

Jeff_59

I was hoping someone would have had a look at your log by now. hopefully soon.

I'm not sure what a log would tell us on this occasion. As I said earlier, the guest's task list is likely to provide the important clues.

mpack wrote:I'm not sure what a log would tell us on this occasion. As I said earlier, the guest's task list is likely to provide the important clues.

Apparently the vbox.log didn't help but "it never hurts to look".

Hopefully the OP will send a task list as well.

Hello mpack and loukingjr

First of all thank you for taking time to help. Enclosed this post the list of tasks as required. If i understand correctly, it looks as if some process that run on startup aren't necessary (like ADService, msmsgs, HPZipm12, hphmon05,...). However, i can't see why they would slower XP on startup only when guest additions are enabled.

Once again, thanks for your support.

Have a great day and take care,

Jeff_59

A bare list of tasks isn't very useful - the idea is for you to note which tasks are consuming high CPU or I/O resources.

That said, I see that the Windows Update task is running (wuauclt.exe). Google for advice on this process.

I also see a bunch of vmware-converter junk processes in there - those can't be doing anything useful either. AFAICS you have not mentioned that this was a P2V project, in fact the impression given is that the VM has been working fine for a while.

I very much doubt that installing the GAs caused this. I suspect that your VM is new and that the first reboot caused this.

Hello,

Thanks for your message.

mpack wrote:A bare list of tasks isn't very useful - the idea is for you to note which tasks are consuming high CPU or I/O resources.

Ok, but these datas always fluctuate, and i don't know how to record them on startup. I ran Process Explorer after startup and the main ressource was allocated to Procexp (which wasn't surprising). ProcMon doesn't seem to be useful either. However, i guess you probably have a software in mind that might be interested.

mpack wrote:That said, I see that the Windows Update task is running (wuauclt.exe). Google for advice on this process.

Ok, thanks. I will look into it.

mpack wrote:I also see a bunch of vmware-converter junk processes in there - those can't be doing anything useful either.

I deleted the corresponding applications. However, it didn't solve the issue.

mpack wrote:AFAICS you have not mentioned that this was a P2V project

You're right. It is indeed a P2V project.

mpack wrote:in fact the impression given is that the VM has been working fine for a while.

It is the case.

mpack wrote:I very much doubt that installing the GAs caused this. I suspect that your VM is new and that the first reboot caused this.

To my knowledge, the first reboot after installing GA caused this.

Have a great day and take care,

Jeff_59

Hello again,

I thought the hphmon05 process (part of HP Photosmart) could be deleted without harming the VM. It looks as if i was wrong. The reboot time was even worse and the VM was unstable (system crash). So i restored my system to a previous point. It turns out, that the VM is now in a much better state than before (time of reboot acceptable). Also, i noticed that the shared folder icon have now a new look and windows has assigned a new letter for it (see screenshot).

Still, i can't understand why these Photosmart drivers are usueful for the GA. Any ideas?

Have a great night and take care,

Jeff_59