Problem with Serial Port on XP Guest on Win 7 Host

[PDocHill]

I have been trying to make the VBox run an XP guest on a Win 7 host for a couple days to no avail. I need a serial port to communicate with a solar system. The application will not run on Win 7 native.

I have followed the steps to buils a VBox on the Win 7 machine and the application comes up OK. The problem I am having is making the VM OS work with the COM1 port. When I go into the Device Manager the COM1 port has a error 10 code. I followed the steps I could find on the various forums also to no avail. I went into the registery of the guest (XP) machine and did not find the proprr entry for COM1 in the devicemap section of the Hardware section. Also in Device manager the Port Settings has the IRQ as 00.

Here is a listing of what the VBox config contains:

Code: Select all

C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox>            VBoxManage showvminfo "Windows XP
 Virtual Machine" | more
Name:            Windows XP Virtual Machine
Groups:          /
Guest OS:        Windows XP (32-bit)
UUID:            5d3117e1-9c6a-4bf0-ab6f-009106107003
Config file:     C:\Users\Owner-PC\VirtualBox VMs\Windows XP Virtual Machine\Win
dows XP Virtual Machine.vbox
Snapshot folder: C:\Users\Owner-PC\VirtualBox VMs\Windows XP Virtual Machine\Sna
pshots
Log folder:      C:\Users\Owner-PC\VirtualBox VMs\Windows XP Virtual Machine\Log
s
Hardware UUID:   5d3117e1-9c6a-4bf0-ab6f-009106107003
Memory size:     750MB
Page Fusion:     off
VRAM size:       16MB
CPU exec cap:    100%
HPET:            off
Chipset:         piix3
Firmware:        BIOS
Number of CPUs:  1
PAE:             off
Long Mode:       off
CPUID Portability Level: 0
CPUID overrides: None
Boot menu mode:  message and menu
Boot Device (1): Floppy
Boot Device (2): DVD
Boot Device (3): HardDisk
Boot Device (4): Not Assigned
ACPI:            on
IOAPIC:          off
Time offset:     0ms
RTC:             local time
Hardw. virt.ext: on
Nested Paging:   on
Large Pages:     on
VT-x VPID:       on
VT-x unr. exec.: on
Paravirt. Provider: Default
State:           powered off (since 2015-10-05T13:50:08.000000000)
Monitor count:   1
3D Acceleration: off
2D Video Acceleration: off
Teleporter Enabled: off
Teleporter Port: 0
Teleporter Address:
Teleporter Password:
Tracing Enabled: off
Allow Tracing to Access VM: off
Tracing Configuration:
Autostart Enabled: off
Autostart Delay: 0
Default Frontend:
Storage Controller Name (0):            IDE
Storage Controller Type (0):            PIIX4
Storage Controller Instance Number (0): 0
Storage Controller Max Port Count (0):  2
Storage Controller Port Count (0):      2
Storage Controller Bootable (0):        on
IDE (0, 0): C:\Users\Owner-PC\VirtualBox VMs\Windows XP Virtual Machine\Windows
XP Virtual Machine.vdi (UUID: 33b734aa-25a7-439d-a6d0-aa8fe420a01b)
IDE (1, 0): C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxGuestAdditions.iso (UUID: 04b
6b6d9-cab7-474f-824a-4c198749ce76)
NIC 1:           MAC: 08002765010E, Attachment: NAT, Cable connected: off, Trace
: off (file: none), Type: Am79C973, Reported speed: 0 Mbps, Boot priority: 0, Pr
omisc Policy: deny, Bandwidth group: none
NIC 1 Settings:  MTU: 0, Socket (send: 64, receive: 64), TCP Window (send:64, re
ceive: 64)
NIC 2:           disabled
NIC 3:           disabled
NIC 4:           disabled
NIC 5:           disabled
NIC 6:           disabled
NIC 7:           disabled
NIC 8:           disabled
Pointing Device: USB Tablet
Keyboard Device: PS/2 Keyboard
UART 1:          I/O base: 0x03f8, IRQ: 4, attached to device 'COM1:'
UART 2:          disabled
LPT 1:           disabled
LPT 2:           disabled
Audio:           enabled (Driver: DSOUND, Controller: AC97, Codec: STAC9700)
Clipboard Mode:  disabled
Drag and drop Mode: disabled
VRDE:            disabled
USB:             enabled
EHCI:            enabled
XHCI:            disabled

USB Device Filters:

<none>

Bandwidth groups:  <none>

Shared folders:

Name: 'VirtualShared', Host path: 'C:\VirtualShared' (machine mapping), readonly

Video capturing:    not active
Capture screens:    0
Capture file:       C:\Users\Owner-PC\VirtualBox VMs\Windows XP Virtual Machine\
Windows XP Virtual Machine.webm
Capture dimensions: 1024x768
Capture rate:       512 kbps
Capture FPS:        25

Guest:

Configured memory balloon size:      0 MB

Does anybody have any insite that might help???

pdh

[dlampert]

I'm having the same issue. On one of my test host machines, the guest Windows XP box was able to successfully use the COM1 port and communicate through a named pipe on the host with C# code residing on the host. However, when I tried to mount the same VDI file on another test host machine, the COM1 port didn't work. If I open the guest Windows XP Device Manager, I see:

- Ports (COM & LPT)
(!) Communications Port (COM1)

Where the (!) is a little alert icon. If I drill down on this, I see the Device Status is:

This device cannot start. (Code 10)

If I try to troubleshoot, it suggests uninstalling and reinstalling the device, but that doesn't solve the problem, and in fact changes the detected port to COM3 instead of COM1. Meanwhile, my machine settings for Serial Ports are:

[x] Enabled Serial Port
Port Number: COM1
IRQ: 4
IO Port: 0x3F8
Port Mode: Host Pipe
[ ] Connect to existing pipe/socket
Path Address: \\.\pipe\MY_PIPE

Apparently, the ability of a guest OS to have a COM1 port is dependent on the hardware of the host, even if the settings are set up as Host Pipe (meaning it should be independent of the host's COM1 port).

[mpack]

@dlampert: you do not appear to have the same problem, as you are trying to use a named pipe, not a host serial port. I suggest that you start your own topic.

@PDocHill: I see you are mapping the virtual UART to host device "COM1:". Please show me a picture of the host Device Manager (Ports branch), showing that COM1 exists? Also, XP guests may required that you "find new hardware" to find a new serial port, if it wasn't present when XP was installed.

You mention multiple VMs, so I hope you bear in mind that applications (e.g. two VMs) can't share a physical serial port. UARTs are not designed to be shared.

[michaln]

There is a known problem with VirtualBox 5.0.6, see https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/14659

[mpack]

Ah, thanks. In that case DLampert probably does have the same problem.

[PDocHill]

mpack
I have provided a screen shot of the Host Divice Manager. The COM1 port works on the host. I tried that first when I noted the problem. I only have one VM on this system. Actually this is my first VM I have ever run on a PC. I come from the L-PARs on IBM mainframes world.
I see that michain posted that there is a known bug.in the 5.0.6 version of VBox. I will uninstall this version and try the 5.0.4 version.
Thanks to all for helping me with this issue. It is good to have a support group out there... I will post my results when the reinstall is complete.

L I G

pdh

ps: I just realized that the Device MGR Screen Shot did not paste. Forum is text only.

[mpack]

Please see Michaln's post above.

[PDocHill]

mpack,

I uninstalled version 5.0.6 and installed version 5.0.4. After getting XP up and running I was able to get the serial port to work.

Thanks to all. I will now see if I can get my application to communicate with the solar inverter....

Life Is Good

pdh

[Martin]

It should have been easier to configure the COM port for the guest to COM2: and stay on 5.0.6

[Bluezeyes]

The problem with 5.0.6 and serial port is that the engineers overwrite erroneously the first serial port settings in virtualbox with the parallel port settings

Workarround for this is, to disable the first serial port and using the second serial port with the settings of the first (real one) serial port ... means IRQ 4 and 0x3f8

There is a fixed version 5.0.7 for testing but unfortunately only for Debian/Ubuntu x64.

Greetings,

Bluezeyes