Sharing files between a VirtualBox WinXP and the Ubuntu 8 host

Its been an Odyssey moving from Windows to Linux, each day a new lesson, a new surprise and a new feature added to my laptop. Well I had successfully installed VirtualBox achieved a successful virtualization, installed Windows XP successfully, all was well. As usual though you always want more, I mean, it really makes no sense if the virtual machine cannot share files with the host machine or networked machines. Thus next task was to try to share the files - a daunting task. I went with what I knew and added the virtual machine to the network. That worked but, while I could see the virtual machine on the network I could not get into the shared folder. Oh Gosh I thought another hurdle. I tried to share the Ubuntu folders but, I kept getting alerts saying I needed permissions. These steps sorted the problem.

  • I created a new network from the virtual server to the default network on Ubuntu called WORKGROUP. Having done that I started to see the virtual machine on the host and vice versa.
  • Next I set up a file share on the folders I wanted to share on my Linux box and all was well.
And all was well.... amazing. Now I have a complete machine. Ubuntu rocks!!

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Ayo,

Pardon the interruption. I am not a tech head, but this was my my avenue of "last resort". I suppose I still have faith that somewhere between VirtualBox and Linux, you still have time for us "little folk", even the grandest mansions have to stand on foundations. The past is relevant.

mrbinitie said...

I'm sorry the explanation did not help. I will expand it and make it more succinct

Alan said...

Hello -- I think there's a simpler way that you might be interested in.

1. Start Windows inside of VirtualBox.

2. Click the VirtualBox Device menu and choose Install Guest Additions.

This will install software inside of Windows that will do two things: VirtualBox shared folders will appear in the Windows dialog box when you add a shortcut, and you'll be able to move the pointer in and out of the guest OS (in this case Windows) without having to click the right Ctrl key.

After the installation, you should see a VirtualBox icon in the Windows status bar (bottom, far right).

3. Go back to the Devices menu and choose the folders that you'd like to have shared with the guest OS.

4. Inside of Windows add a shortcut, click Browse, and choose whatever shared folders you would like.

That should do it.

mrbinitie said...

Nice one Alan :)

Unknown said...

Can you explain this with Ubuntu as the guest under XP please. I have Guest Additions installed and used Devices/shared Folders to add c:\Documents~\Folder. Then was told I had to use a mount command in terminal mode - that seemed OK but errors with 'no such folder or directory'

mrbinitie said...

Hi Ted, I have no experience of deploying VirtualBox on Windows with Ubuntu as the Guest but, I'll do what I can to help

Unknown said...

I solve my file share problem by re-installing Guest Additions. Some one suggested that Ubuntu updates sometimes overwrites Guest Additions.

Udit said...

Thanks, Alan!

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