VBoxManage guestcontrol issues

[Captain_Planet]

Hi.

I'm having a nightmare trying to get the guestcontrol command to work. I'm using a Windows 7 x64 host and a Windows 7 X64 VM. I've upgraded to the latest Guest Additions to see if that helps (4.3.12) but it doesn't.

Please see my example command below:

"C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxManage.exe" guestcontrol win764appv64sp1 exec --image "C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe" --username admin --password "password" --wait-exit -- "\\VBOXSVR\share\install.cmd"

I have mapped a share to my host (called 'share') and can access it fine from the VM. Incidentally I've also moved the .cmd file to a local drive on the VM, and it still doesn't work.

The CMD.exe process launches, but can only be seen in Task Manager. I cannot see the black window.

Any advice appreciated.

[socratis]

The environment for the command line is NOT the same as the environment that you have as your user. So do not expect network shares and things like that to work the same as in your typical "user".

[Captain_Planet]

Ok, slightly confused, but I think I know what you're getting at....

I sorted the 'not being able to see the command prompt' by using "cmd.exe /c start ...." like so:

"C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxManage.exe" guestcontrol win764appv64sp1 exec --image "C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe" --username "admin" --password "password" --wait-exit -- "/c start copy \\VBOXSVR\share\custom.ps1 C:\"

However, as you mentioned, when this script runs just after login (I'm copying a file on a share to the root of C:\) it cannot locate the file on the share! However, if I physically navigate to the share on the VM (just browse to it), then run the command again, it works fine??

Please can you advise how I can run a script - located on my host - in the virtual session?

[socratis]

Take a look at the following thread, where I believe this problem has already been answered: [SOLVED] guestcontrol + Perl + shared folder == fail.

[Captain_Planet]

Hi. Doesn't that post just relate to Perl?

[socratis]

No, it doesn't. Don't let the title mislead you. Read it again carefully from the 5th post onward and specially the last post. It's the environment variables that were not set correctly, which caused the guestcontrol to fail.

[Captain_Planet]

Ok I'll read it again....

In the interim, I think another fix may be creating the share in the actual session as opposed to manually creating it. So I've added these lines to the start of my script and it appears to work ok now:

"C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxManage.exe" sharedfolder remove win764appv64sp1 -name "myshare"
"C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxManage.exe" sharedfolder add win764appv64sp1 -name "myshare" --hostpath "C:\test" --automount

Out of interest (and slightly off topic), when I launch my GUI is there a way to disable it? So users can just see what's happening and not actually click anything?