virtualbox.org

[SOLVED]
I have debian based Linux running on a 24 core rackserver.
Installed virtualbox.

Configured 6 CPU's to be used by the Win 7 pro guest.
Boot up the win7pro guest and once up, I do msconfig -> advanced where I can configure the amount of cpus.
Even though Virtualbox is configured with 6/24 cpus for the Win7 guest win7 still only have 1 cpu available.

How do I get around this to get the win client to use the 6 cpus

There are several things which can cause that, but the most common culprit is lack of hardware virtualization.

Please go thoroughly through the FAQ: I have a 64bit host, but can't install 64bit guests. Remember that these are just guidelines, you have to use your judgement...

Thanks socrates I will do that.
Forgot to add that the win7 Pro guest is 32bit the Linux host is 64bit.

Bios contains only one virtualmachine/hypervisor option.
namely "Secure VirtualMachine" and that was enabled.

I a working through rest of your link, but those are basically only for 64bit guests.

I have a question about point 4) in your link as I dont understand the meaning clearly.
In my case the Host is 64-bit Linux and I am installing 32bit Win7Pro as I need to run 16bit applications also and I need 7Pro for multicore. Vanilla 7 home etc cannot do multicore past 2 I think I remember.

So if I read correctly, what is said there is that I ALWAYS need to create a 64bit virtual machine even if I am going to load a 32bit guest ?.
In my case I created a 32bit virtual machine as the guest would be 32 bit. Can that be the problem ?
Is there a way to change the virtual machine to 64 bit without reinstalling the guest ?

That is not really a problem. It does not really matter whether the host and guest are both 32 or 64 bit or not.

The FAQ talks about 64-bit guests because they simply will not run without hardware virtualization. If you have 32-bit guests you do not need it for that BUT you do need it to have more than one CPU in the guest. Two separate problems with a common solution.

All the Bios virtual machine/hypervisor options are enabled.
It didnt make a difference to the amount of CPU's I tried to configure through msconfig.
It remains 1 only.
Unfortunately I need the extra cpu's as the applications are cpu hungry.
Windows works so much better in a virtual machine than native. I could even like it for a change.

In VBox 5 I could not assign more than 8 processors to a Windows guest using Hyper-v paravirtulization. In VBox 6 I just assigned 14 processors to a Windows guest. See: https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/17898

@zimbodel

Did you actually read the FAQ? I do not doubt that the BIOS settings are correct, but that is just the beginning. As the FAQ points out, there are lots of other things which will prevent VirtualBox from using hardware virtualization. There is no "magic bullet" to fix this. You have to find what it is and fix the problem.

To make sure that this is really your problem, what happens if you try to create a new vm? Are you offered the option to install 64-bit guests? If you are not, VirtualBox cannot use hardware virtualization. Some other process must be using it if it is enabled in the BIOS.

To BillG
Yes I actually read the FAQ.
It has some useful information, but beats about the bush on this issue.

Yes if I create a new virtual machine it offers windows 7 64 bit by default.

Thank you very much for confirming that.
I am running 6.0 so I should be able to do 4 or 6 processors according to your confirmation.
I will read the link you supplied.

jagdpanther wrote:In VBox 5 I could not assign more than 8 processors to a Windows guest using Hyper-v paravirtulization. In VBox 6 I just assigned 14 processors to a Windows guest. See: https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/17898

The log helped quite a lot.
It seems I still have a problem,

[ModEdit; Partial VBox.log removed]

Phase One's Capture One Pro 12 ? Now you are talking. Could you get the phase one to be recognised in the windows client ?

Partial logs are not that helpful I'm afraid, I've removed it. We need to see a complete VBox.log, from a complete VM run, where the problem occurs:

• Start the VM from cold-boot (not from a paused or saved state) / Observe problem / Shutdown the VM (force close it if you have to).
• With the VM completely shut down (not paused or saved), right-click on the VM in the VirtualBox Manager and select "Show Log".
• Save only the first "VBox.log", ZIP it and attach it to your response. See the "Upload attachment" tab below the reply form.

zimbodel wrote: ...
Phase One's Capture One Pro 12 ? Now you are talking. Could you get the phase one to be recognised in the windows client ?

(This is way off topic ...) Yes, phase One's Capture One Pro 12 (and 11, 10, 9) all work in a Virtualbox Windows guest. (Win10 now, previously I used Win 7 guest) I care about cores because the one thing that doesn't work when running Capture One Pro in a VBox Win10 guest is graphic's card compute acceleration via OpenCL. This is not really an issue when editing an image but does make a difference when batch processing several images or doing big imports. Captue One Pro in a VBox VM does use all the cores you give it.

Amazing if you could communicate with the camera ?
Was that possible ?

For the record, using QEMU I could access more than one cpu in windows 7 pro, also sound is passed through perfectly to pulseaudio.
I am busy working out USB with Qemu.
So the buck clearly stops with virtualbox and not my hardware host or guest OS.

I dont know what is up with virtualbox not being able to do the same as Qemu on exactly the same machine, host and guest OS.
Virtualbox is sure way easier to install and configure than Qemu, but does not seem to be functionally as advanced as Qemu.

zimbodel wrote:Amazing if you could communicate with the camera ?
Was that possible ?

If you are asking if I shoot tethered: no. So I never tried that feature with Capture One in a VBox Win guest. I expect it would work, I have other applications that use USB communications work without issue from a VBox windows guest. For example, I update my Garmin GPS via the Garmin Express application running in my Windows 10 VM guest without issue. I also back up an iPhone via iTunes running in that same VM.