virtualbox.org

I am using windows 7 installed in a virtualbox. The virtualbox is installed on linux UBUNTU OS. When I tried to install an app in windows 7 using a setup.exe from a CD, the permission is denied. But, the windows 7 detects the CD and I can open the CD folder. It just I couldnt run the setup.exe file. I am getting a message "windows cannot access the specified device, path or file. you may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item."

I even tried changing the security settings of the windows. It didnt help.

Any suggestions to solve the problem would be very useful. Thanks in advance. I have also attached the screen shot of the error message.

Thanks in advance,

NEO

How are you trying to access the contents of the CD? Is it a physical CD or is it an ISO?

@socratis I am using a physical CD. I chose the option Devices -> Optical Drive -> Host CD/DVD drive.

Ah, OK, I see that you changed the title of the topic as well. Good move. And you're using the passthrough option in the CD options? And you can't get it to run? Hmm...

This seems to be something that's happening on physical Win7 installations as well with several potential sources for this. Even Microsoft has an article about it: "Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file" error when you try to install, update or start a program or file. But, I would go one step further than that and search the webs for installation "windows cannot access the specified device, path or file.", i.e. treat it as a Windows problem, not a VirtualBox one.

Or try to copy the contents of the CD in a folder in the VM's hard drive and see if you can run it that way.

@socratis Thank you for your reply. Yes, its a windows problem. But, I wasnt able to solve it. So, I just installed windows XP in VirtualBox and tried to install the application. It worked!

Thanks again!

Ram

So, it didn't work for a Win7 installation, but it did for a WinXP one. Are you sure that the application was supposed to be able to run on Win7 and that the error message was not just a red herring?

Yeah, I am sure. When I tried that CD in a win7 host, I didnt have that problem. But, When I tried that CD in win7 (as guest in VB), I had that error message.