Windows 10 Guest

[nypaulie]

I retried a Windows 10 installation as guest on my Linux (Mint 17.3) host and scrapped it once more. It is Too slow. Anyone have better results than me? I'd love to know your "secrets", if any.

[socratis]

It is Too slow. Anyone have better results than me?

With these clues alone, do you honestly expect a decent answer? Too ... slow??? Better that ... what???

With the VM shut down completely (not paused or saved), right-click on the VirtualBox Manager and select "Show Log". Save the first "VBox.log" only, ZIP it and attach it to your response (see the "Upload attachment" tab below the reply form).

[nypaulie]

Thanks for the speedy response and sorry for the dearth of info I posted. I will have to reinstall Win10 to get the VBox.log.zip made and will do that later this AM.

[nypaulie]

OK, so here's the file... hope I followed your instructions and that it's what you need. BTW, thanks again.

[mpack]

What exactly is slow? Is the disk slow? Are the graphics slow?

Given that you haven't installed the Guest Additions yet (GAs ISO is mounted, but GAs not installed), I'd expect the graphics to be slow. Also, if it were me I'd tweak the display size to be an exact multiple of 32 pixels wide. At the very least I'd make it a multiple of 4. Then the height should be exactly == (W*9)/16.

[nypaulie]

What exactly is slow? Is the disk slow? Are the graphics slow?

Given that you haven't installed the Guest Additions yet (GAs ISO is mounted, but GAs not installed), I'd expect the graphics to be slow. Also, if it were me I'd tweak the display size to be an exact multiple of 32 pixels wide. At the very least I'd make it a multiple of 4. Then the height should be exactly == (W*9)/16.

I was not aware that I had not installed the Guest Additions so I did that hoping that this would bring the OS to life. Sorry, still too sluggish to use. What is slow? Everything! Graphics, file transfers, loading up, shutting down... you name it. Can I be any clearer? I have gone back to Win7 for those times when I Must use Windows. Thanks for Linux - can't imagine why anyone would use anything else. My original post asked if Anyone has had success using Windows 10 on a Linux host and I have had zero response. My query still stands though.

[Martin]

You could also try reducing the guest settings to just use a single vCPU.
The Core 2 Duo T9300 only has two cores, you should leave one "free" for the host to handle the guest.

[Perryg]

My original post asked if Anyone has had success using Windows 10 on a Linux host and I have had zero response.

The answer is yes I have for a really short time to see what it looked like, but I think the real question is why not for you? Core2 duo would be low powered running Windows 10 on metal. Add the fact that you are running it as a guest amplifies the lack of power. You should be able to run it but don't expect it to be... fast. You can speed it up a bit by turning off all the animation going on with DT but that is nothing to do with VBox IMHO, it just uses too much CPU ticks.

[nypaulie]

You could also try reducing the guest settings to just use a single vCPU.
The Core 2 Duo T9300 only has two cores, you should leave one "free" for the host to handle the guest.

Good point... will give that a try! Thanks.

[mpack]

I agree with Perry. I somehow doubt that running Windows 10 as a VM on a Core 2 Duo host will ever be a pleasant experience, regardless of the number of cores you assign. Perhaps you should stick to Win7-32bit guests. Mind you even that will suffer from the shortage of cores.

[nypaulie]

I agree with Perry. I somehow doubt that running Windows 10 as a VM on a Core 2 Duo host will ever be a pleasant experience, regardless of the number of cores you assign. Perhaps you should stick to Win7-32bit guests. Mind you even that will suffer from the shortage of cores.

Best answer yet! I Did try dropping from 2 to 1 cores with no apparent improvement. Just running any OS in VBox gives less performance than running it directly, and I am OK with that, but Win10 just won't cut it for me... so back to 7 when I need it. Thanks to all for your help.

[mpack]

I should perhaps make clear that, until recently, I myself had a Core 2 Duo host as my home PC. I still have one as my work PC. ISTR that Win10 was damn near unusable as a guest when I tried it - but became more usable once I had killed off a number of background tasks (including Cortana and Windows Defender active scanning), and allowed Windows Update to get complete. But, it was never going to be a fun experience.