exporting VB shared folder with samba vs. MS office

[elonderin]

hi,

my setup is this:
- host; win7 pro
guest
- ubuntu 14.903 LTS
- samba

i have a shared folder that i mount, let's sat to ~/share with

Code: Select all

sudo mount -t vboxsf -o rw,uid=1000,gid=1000 dummy-shared-folder ~/share

OR

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sudo mount -t vboxsf -o rw dummy-shared-folder ~/share

where dummy-shared-folder is the VB shared folder

i can access the folder from windows host alright and also from other windows machines and it works mostly, ie. i can create, delete, change text files with a simple editor -- except with MS office apps when writing
e.g.:

1. i open a .doc with word
2. change smth and then hit save (as)

result: it will fail with: "there has been a network or file permission error..."
an empty file has been created though if it was 'Save As'.

same goes for XLS.

however, i have no such problems with samba shares that are not backed by a VB shared folder, but a normal folder from the the guest linux FS. that works like s charm!
i googled around a bit but couldnt find this exact case. however, i read in some old posts that office apps and also some others, do the saving by creating temp files that then get renamed etc.
my guess it is related to that.
and i suspect that the VB shared folders arent cut out for this.

anybody having an idea on the subject?

PS: i realize the use case is a bit odd, but i need to do it that way, ie. server a shared host folder thru samba (or some other protokoll) to other windows clients.

[socratis]

i have no such problems with samba shares

Why don't you use a true network share then? Like (as you figured out) a SAMBA share? The shared folders implementation of VirtualBox is a very simplistic implementation of a network file share, which does not have advanced features like file-locking, which is what Office is looking for.