virtualbox.org

Running OS 10.10.5 Downloaded VBox graphi user interface 5.2.22 and installed windows xp professional downloaded from Microsoft.
Went smoothly. Once installed, went to Devices and selected installed guest additions 5.2.22. with default destination C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\ guest Additions ;
"next" took me to Choose Components with Virtual Guest Additions high-lit - but the box greyed out. Install initiated a prolonged procedure to Finish screen inviting a reboot. This windows xp proceeded normally, but explorer showed that no USB connections were available. I'd also selected a Shared Folder (as Documents),
but Explorer showed that this was also not available.
?Where Have I Gone Wrong??

USB is done by simulated hardware, it does not require guest additions to installed. It does however require the extension pack to be installed on the host, since the extension pack contains the simulation code.

On shared folders, where are you looking to find a shared folder? Hopefully not in XP's documents folder area as you seem to be saying. You should look in the network neighborhood, open the server \\vboxsvr branch, then you should see your share name listed. You may want to map this share to a guest drive letter, or create a shortcut to the folder on the XP desktop (direct links are usually much faster than network discovery I find).

Thanks so much for that !
I'd done the guest installation like my YouTube guide told me, but I'd not done the host.
That indeed gave me - some - USB connectivity. But going into Ports\USB still has them all greyed out.
The external CD drive forced onto you by Apple goes in through USB & doesn't play reliably.
I started it installing some software from a disc - started OK but then stalled part-way, telling me to insert a disc.
Fortunately I had the software on a USB drive & that worked fine.
The system I'd been using before the Mojave update killed it wouldn't read all my USB drives (probably USB 1, 2, 3 etc issues)
but I learned to live it.

The shared folder issue - (another missing option in my previous system) -
when I go into shared folders in Devices it says
Machine folders
Documents /Users/richardhodge/Documents/Documents (Automount Yes)
Transient Folders

Oops !

Just looked again at the XP explorer & this Documemts folder is indeed there !

Thanks again foryour guidance - I;ll be back in touch if it all goes wrong !

More on this topic. With guest additions installed on the mac host I can use some, but only some of my USB drives.
With the previous VB installation, (which crashed after I'd installed OS 10.14) I'd been able to use some of my drives,
but not all. I'd assumed that it was - a) ones that had been formatted the apple way (unsurprising)
b) I assumed that, although they were certainly formatted microsoft & contained windows files I coudn't get to the files
because the devices were USB 3 or something.
Now - some, but not all of the drives that would connect before won't now.
When I go into devices - ports - USB everything in the top section is greyed out - does this HAVE to be so?
Another related issue is that I can't read/write a CD/DVD disc in the virtual machine, because it won't connect to the external CD drive.
This, of course has to connect through USB/optical. I can select it when plugged in but it won't let me put a disc in.
Irritating !
Can you (anyone) help with this?
p creaser

petrol creaser wrote:With guest additions installed on the mac host ...

As the name tells you, guest additions are installed in the guest. They must not be installed on the host. Happily there are no GAs for OS X, so you can't make that mistake. Do please stop conflating the two features, they do very different things and we don't want other readers to be confused. The host plugin is called the extension pack, while the GAs have nothing to do with USB.

The easiest way to access host storage is as a GA shared folder. You don't need to use USB.

You can't mount the CD because you don't really have a CD, you have generic USB mass storage. I wouldn't try to mount that in the VM, I'd just use it to image the physical CD media to an ISO or DMG image file and mount that in the VM instead.

Point taken . I have been confusing guest additions & extension pack.