virtualbox.org

Ok - I'm sure this is a thread but I'm sorry.

I run a Mac with a Windows 10 virtual machine.

Every time there is an update of Guest Additions I get a message on my mac and also my PC saying there are things to download. The mac does it all seamlessly.

in Windows it says to click the icon in the tray and nothing ever happens.

Then I spend 45minutes trying to find where the Guest Additions can be downloaded from online and then I want to scream because I can never find them.

Except once - I found a website that had them all listed. And I was excited and I thought - I should bookmark this. But I didn't. And I've never been able to find it since.

So....that.

Please search before asking these questions. This has been asked and answered many times before, including in the last few days.

You don't need to find the Guest Additions online, because they came bundled with the VirtualBox main install. Read the Guest Additions install instructions in the user manual, in particular note that if the guest OS has autorun disabled then the GAs installer will have to be run manually from the virtual CD that VirtualBox attaches to the VM.

Thanks

I appreciate your response. And also that this is free software that we are talking about.

I'll keep (yes keep, I did search, exhaustively, which is why I finally wrote a post) searching as that is actually the only response you have provided, which is frustrating.

As someone who is very confident on computers but doesn't have a technical background it may help to understand my questions, because others may be having the same problem:

• My Windows keeps telling me I need something and tells me to click the tray but nothing happens. I'm following the instructions. How do I know that what i'm donig isn't working?
• I don't know whether or not the guest OS has autorun disabled (I assume yes).
• assuming autorun is disabled, as is sounds like something I'd like to be working, I don't know how to change that.
• I understand now that I don't need to find Guest Additions online. That is great. thanks
• how to I run the installer manually from the vitrual CD? I've selected 'Insert Guest Additions CD image' but nothing seems to happen
• I'll do a search for the user manual and see if I can find it

Alexis23 wrote:My Windows keeps telling me I need something

No, no, no... That's not the proper way to report an issue. You don't go with a generic "I need something", you describe exactly what you see, the exact error message. In your case that would be:

VirtualBox Guest Additions update available!
Your guest is currently running the Guest Additions version A.B.C. We recommend updating to the latest version (X.Y.Z) by choosing the Install^[1] option from the Devices menu.

Now, re-using an image from the User Manual, and looking under the "Devices" menu, what do you see?


Do you see that last entry there? "Insert Guest Additions CD image..."^[1] ?

You do not care where that image is! That's the whole point. You click on that menu entry and you're done, the Guest Additions CD is now inserted on your guest. Depending on your guest, you then follow the instructions specific to your guest:

User Manual

• 4.2. Installing and Maintaining Guest Additions
  • 4.2.1. Guest Additions for Windows
  • 4.2.2. Guest Additions for Linux
  • 4.2.3. Guest Additions for Oracle Solaris
  • 4.2.4. Guest Additions for OS/2

Or in other words, with the VM window having the focus, go to the host's menu "Devices" » "Insert Guest Additions CD Image...". If not prompted by auto-run, run "VBoxWindowsAdditions.exe" from the CD.

Alexis23 wrote:I'm following the instructions.

Not completely, partially only.

Alexis23 wrote:How do I know that what i'm donig isn't working?

1) You won't be prompted again to update the GAs
2) If you hover over the VirtualBox icon in the tray in your guest, you'll the updated version in the tooltip.

Alexis23 wrote:• I don't know whether or not the guest OS has autorun disabled (I assume yes).
• assuming autorun is disabled, as is sounds like something I'd like to be working, I don't know how to change that.

Now, that would be something worth searching on the Internet for...

Alexis23 wrote:how to I run the installer manually from the vitrual CD? I've selected 'Insert Guest Additions CD image' but nothing seems to happen

Inserting a CD on itself does nothing. See above.

But those are NOT VirtualBox related questions, those are Windows questions. You should know your guest OS. Or learn it. But not in the VirtualBox forums, we can't be discussing every detail of every OS supported, this isn't an OS-support forum, this is a VirtualBox-support forum.

Alexis23 wrote:I'll do a search for the user manual and see if I can find it

A "search"?
How about going to the "Help" menu » "Contents"? That opens a searchable PDF included with your installation (Help » Contents). If not, there's the on-line manual in PDF format, again searchable. Take advantage of that fact, and use it to search the PDF for the terms that interest you.

---

^[1]: I may be partially responsible for the wording...
That menu entry used to be called "Install Guest Additions..." and that got changed on Oct/2013, see ticket #12200. I may have to reopen that ticket and amend it to include the Windows Tooltip as well...

well......where to start.

Firstly - thanks!
That was a big help and I managed to work out what a I needed. I even quite enjoyed your 'gentle' chiding, because you were providing the solution along with it. I can completely live with that.

FYI:

Might not be the right way to report an issue, but you seemed to know exactly what I meant, so all good

I did the 'Insert Guest Additions' thing and nothing seemed to happen. The online instructions say it should automatically install from there. My problem was believing this. Also not really knowing Windows well anymore. I followed the 'Manually install' instructions, not realising that was what I actually needed, and found that the disk had mounted, then picked one of the three install files on there, which then did the job.

Whether or not my questions were VirtualBox related or not was information I didn't know. But I figured it would make the most sense to ask for help from the VBox website as someone there would know both, whereas with Windows help, they might not know VBox.

As for searching. I did search. I searched the internet. I searched this Forum. I searched the manual. Don't tell me I didn't search. I searched for freaking hours. Tell me I'm too stupid to follow instructions (you kinda did), or too stupid to work out the right search terms (you didn't but I think you'd be comfortable telling me that), but don't tell me I didn't search.

In the end, and I'm going to put it here so I can search for it 12 months from now when I have the same problem as this time but can't for the life of me remember how to solve it, the solution is:

1 - Go do Devices menue in VBox while Windows is open and select 'Insert Guest Additions CD...'
2 - go to Windows Explorer and navigate to the mounted disk (don't expect there to be a message that it has mounted, nor to be able to see it on the desktop)
3 - run the installer

Thanks Socratis, for taking the time to answer. The smart&r$e tone made me appreciate it more. I can live with most things if I get the right and/or honest answer. Unlike the first response I got that just told me I was wrong but didn't tell me what to do (fyi - I knew the first bit already).

Alexis23 wrote:Might not be the right way to report an issue, but you seemed to know exactly what I meant, so all good

It was a lucky guess
But, generally speaking, keep in mind that the more detailed you are, the better we can understand the potential issue, the better we can direct you...

Alexis23 wrote:I even quite enjoyed your 'gentle' chiding

I guess my age starts showing! Grumpy old men!

Alexis23 wrote:The online instructions say it should automatically install from there

Close...

For other guest operating systems, or if automatic start of software on a CD is disabled, you need to do a manual start of the installer.

Alexis23 wrote:Whether or not my questions were VirtualBox related or not was information I didn't know

True, very true, this is a Windows question, because it's Windows actually that 1) invented the "autorun" feature, 2) they pulled it back in the latest Win versions, because they quickly realized that an "autorun virus" was actually a possibility!

Alexis23 wrote:Don't tell me I didn't search

You said "I'll search for the User Manual", and I told you where to find it, I said that there was *no* need for search actually. You didn't have to search at all...

Glad you got it going, marking as [Resolved].