virtualbox.org

It is possible to assign a separate mouse and keyboard and screen to one VM, so someone can use the VM independently. I can do what I want on the host, at the same time as the VM user. So I use the host OS, and someone else use the VM at the same time - see below for a description how to do this (***). However, I wonder if it is possible to start several VMs, and dedicate a separate mouse and keyboard and screen to each VM - so all the users can run their separate VM simultaneously?

I have a gaming VM that I want to duplicate, so two persons can game on my PC. I dont want to install games on my host OS, because that PC is used for work. So I would like to duplicate my gaming VM and run them simultaneously. This would be a very nifty feature, I dont know if anyone else can do this? VMware? Parallells? Can anyone do that? I would love to have one strong PC and start up several VMs, and assign one user to each VM in a simple way. It is possible to do this on Linux, using multi-seat and using several independent graphic cards and configuring X11, and lot of other work:
http://linuxgazette.net/124/smith.html
But I would like VirtualBox to do be able to support several users easily. This way I could use Windows 10 as my host OS, and would not be forced to use Linux. I could use any OS I want.

In my subjective opinion, this would be a killer feature because companies could save lot of money. They just buy one powerful PC, and clone one master VM and with minimal work, they could setup a new desk so a new employee can work. And if one of the people's VM is problematic, the admin just delete it and clone the VM again. I do guess that companies would be willing to pay for this function as it saves time and money. Would this be difficult to do for VirtualBox? Does it require heavy modifications in the architecture? What do you other users say, would you like functionality like this? VirtualBox could compete with Citrix and the others that allow multi users, with minimal work(?).

(***) This can be done by clicking on a VM and "Settings" -> "USB" -> "USB Device Filters" and then create a new filter with the plus sign. Create a filter for the mouse, and another for the keyboard. Then start the VM and disable mouse integration which traps the mouse pointer in the VM. And now you can use one mouse in the host os, and at the same time you can use the trapped mouse pointer in the VM using another mouse.

Your *** method for getting another user to access your guest via keyboard and mouse attached to your PC is the same method you'd use for multiple users. You'd just have to make sure that there's something different about each mouse and each keyboard, so the Virtualbox USB filters have something to filter on.

The idea you had about multiple desks using guests on one monster host is already done; it's called Virtual desktop infrastructure. It is not usually done with mice and keyboards with long wires they use network connections and Remote Desktop-like software with thin- or zero-clients (PCs with a minimal remote-only OS like ThinStation, and either a small hard drive/SD card or no drive and boot over the network.) The OS's they boot into are on a hefty server. I have a couple such spare work environments on our office host server, to allow workers to keep working if their desk PCs go down. Virtualbox can do this easily. (One big problem with this setup is a single point of failure: the hefty server goes down and the whole office is out of work. Another problem is below:)

You'll have issues running games (or other graphics-intensive software, cad/cam, 3D modeling, etc.) in guests, because the host graphics card doesn't get used by the guest. (There are 2D and 3D accelerations available in Guest Additions that can dip into the host graphics card, but not enough to make a game happy.) So even if you could get a super-beast for your host and enough different keyboards and mice for a LAN party ("KVM-party"?) you probably would not have a good gaming experience. Email & youtube, probably, but games, not likely.

I have severe problems getting this to work. This is really fragile and must be done in exactly the correct order. Can someone help me? I want to boot two WinXP VMs to play games on. I have two mouses and two keyboards and two screens.

I have created new separate USB filters for each VM. And then I have checked (crossed) them. For instance, VM1 has keyboard1 and mouse1 checked in the USB settings screen "USB Device Filters". VM2 has keyboard2 and mouse2 checked in the "USB Device Filters". I want to run VM1 in Screen1, and VM2 in Screen2.

Then I start up VM2. It starts up fullscreen on screen2. It has keyboard2 greyed out in the USB top menu and mouse2 is checked. My mouse pointer can go between both screens. Then I disable Mouse Integration, and there are two mouse pointers. One mouse pointer can be dragged both to screen1 and screen2, and one mouse pointer is stuck on screen2 with VM2. However, Screen2 does not have a keyboard at all. I cannot type text in Screen2. Keyboard2 is not active nowhere. Keyboard1 is active and I can type text in Screen1.

I have not started VM1 at this point. I am using the underlying OS on Screen1. So, how can I get the keyboard2 to work on Screen2, using VM2? After that, I will try to boot VM1 and allocate Mouse1 and Keyboard1 to Screen1. Do I need 3 mouses and 3 keyboards to do this? The underlying OS has one mouse and keyboard, and each VM has separate keyboard and mouses?

The ordering is very important here. It is very fragile. For instance, If you dont check the keyboard in USB menu you will get different results.