[vbox-dev] Somehow, denied

Mon Jun 14 07:21:40 GMT 2010

Dear Mr. Karant,

I've just checked the membership list of the vbox-dev mailing list
but didn't find your E-mail address so it seems that you are not
subscribed to this list. Note that there was a vbox-users mailing
list until some months ago which does not longer exists. But I hereby
forward your E-mail to the vbox-dev mailing list.

On Thursday 10 June 2010, you wrote:

[...]

> Note that I am not the author of the various items below, merely
> repeating them in one place.  You finally seem to have a viable
> replacement for VMWare workstation that actually executes
> MS Win XP Pro applications both faster and at lower real machine
> loads than VMWare.
>
> For well over a year, I have been attempting to get VirtualBox to work
> with VMWare vmdk files that have MS Win XP Pro SP3 installed and working.
> I have now succeeded, and I think that this information would be good to
> get to the general end-user.  Host:  CentOS (RHEL) current, presently
> 5.5, on a IA-32 platform.  Guest:  MS Win XP Pro SP3.

[...]

> 1.  Before shutting down VMWare running the MS Win XP image, remove
> VMware tools within MS Win XP. Shutdown the machine.
>
> 2.  Make a new Virtual Box using the VMWare MS Win XP image.
>
> 3.  Within Virtual Box. boot the virtual machine from a MS Win XP CD,
> and using the MS Win information on how to remove agp440, remove/disable
> it.
>
> 4.  Boot the no-agp440 machine withing VirtualBox.  Install the Virtual
> Box MS Win tools.
>
> 5.  Follow the procedure below to enable USB:
>
> *VirtualBox USB Ports*
>
> Running CentOS as my host OS and using VirtualBox to run "everything else",
> it didn't take long before I was running into USB problems. In my case I
> had a Windows 2000 guest on a CentOS 5 host (same for RedHat EL) and I
> wanted to use ActiveSync to connect to my WM5 Windows Mobile device.
>
> I'm diverting for a sec, but this is the big reason why I like VirtualBox
> so much. I do software development for the Windows Mobile platform
> (http://www.locatea.net/) which requires a lot of software installation for
> Visual Studio and then even more for the various Windows Mobile SDKs. It is
> quite a job to get it all installed correctly. Previously that whole
> install could (and would) easily be screwed up because some completely
> unrelated application would mess up the registry, forcing you to reinstall
> the server and start from scratch.
>
> Now, by virtualizing my desktop, I have an instance that I solely use for
> Windows Mobile software development. If I need Microsoft Office I do it in
> another Windows guest. And if I want to tryout a new software package that
> I don't really trust, I simply clone my base image and install it in there.
> If the app doesn't work out or behaves badly, I can simply blow the whole
> image.
>
> So, where many people think that desktop virtualization is just great for
> running different types of OSes on a single host, IMHO it is even more
> important because it allows you to create multiple environments, that have
> very dissimilar functionality, but can have the same platform requirements.
> Of course I also use it to run OpenSolaris on my Mac.:-)
>
> Back to USB in Windows guests. Out of the box it doesn't work, at least not
> on my platform. A little googling provides a lot of recommendations to add
> an entry to/etc/fstab (none /proc/bus/usb usbfs devgid=501,devmode=0664 0
> 0). It seems that for Ubuntu this fixes the problem, but not for RedHat /
> CentOS. It took me a lot of searching, but finally I found in an obscure
> corner of some forum a solution. You have to modify your
> /etc/rc.d/rc/sysinit file.
>
> if [ ! -d /proc/bus/usb ]; then
>           modprobe usbcore>/dev/null 2>&1&&   mount -n -t usbfs \
>                           /proc/bus/usb /proc/bus/usb -o
> devgid=501,devmode=664 else
>           mount -n -t usbfs /proc/bus/usb /proc/bus/usb -o
> devgid=501,devmode=664 fi
>
> This piece is mainly already there, but you need to add the "-o"
> parameters. In here "501" is the GID you have specified in your /etc/group
> for the vboxusers group.
>
> After having done this, the Windows guest recognizes USB sticks, external
> hard drives and nicely connects to my mobile phone.
>
> For the MS Win XP part of the problem:
>
> *How to fix the error
> "This Device Cannot Start. (Code 10)"
> When working with a USB device in Windows XP*
>
> If you have plugged in a USB device (usually a mass storage device) into a
> computer and it doesnt work, here are some basic troubleshooting steps to
> resolve the problem.
>
> First, you want to rule out any problems with the device itself. A good way
> to do this is to plug the USB device into a different computer to see if it
> works there. If it does not work in a different computer, then the problem
> is with the device itself. USB devices, although very handy and portable
> can fail just like any other device.
>

> However, if the USB device works in another computer system, then the
> problem lies with the configuration of the computer where the device did
> not work.
>
> Follow the steps below to troubleshoot this scenario and make your USB
> device work again.
>
> 1) If you are using a USB cable with your device, check the cable to make
> sure it matches the speed of the device. Use USB 2.0 cables with USB 2.0
> devices and USB 1.1 cables with USB 1.1 devices. Swap cables and check the
> device, if this does not work, proceed to Step 2.
>
> 2) Next, open Device Manager and look under the heading for USB Serial Bus
> Controllers. If there is a device with a yellow exclamation mark next to it
> such as USB Mass Storage Device. Double-click on the entry and check the
> Device Status. If the status shows something like
>
> *"This device cannot start. (Code 10)"*
>
> proceed to Step 3.
>
> 3) The easiest way to solve a USB error code 10 in Windows XP is to follow
> the steps below to remove and reinstall all USB controllers.
>
> A. Click on Start
> B. Right Click on My Computer, click on Properties
> C. Click on the Hardware tab
> D. Click the Device Manager button.
> E. Expand Universal Serial Bus controllers section.
> F. Right-click every device under the Universal Serial Bus controllers
> node, and then click Uninstall to remove them one at a time.
> G. Restart the computer, and allow the computer to reinstall the USB
> controllers. H. Plug in the removable USB storage device, and then test to
> make sure that the issue is resolved.
>
> For more information on Troubleshooting USB device problems, visit the
> Microsoft Support Article on this
> subject.<http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=310575>

Kind regards,

Frank
-- 
Dr.-Ing. Frank Mehnert

Sitz der Gesellschaft:
Sun Microsystems GmbH, Sonnenallee 1, 85551 Kirchheim-Heimstetten
Amtsgericht München: HRB 161028
Geschäftsführer: Jürgen Kunz
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