Windows XP guest, SB16 not working

[Doug Roberts]

No combination of audio driver/audio controller lets the guest have working sound. Works in VMware with Alsa driver specified.

roberts@igor:~/public_html/CaseTanner/images$ uname -a Linux igor 2.6.24-19-generic #1 SMP Fri Jul 11 21:01:46 UTC 2008 x86_64 GNU/Linux

AMD SMP x86_64

[Frank Mehnert]

ALSA should work on nearly all Linux hosts. What does it mean, 'not working'? You don't hear any sound or does the initialization fail? Please attach the VBox.log file when you set ALSA for the host backend and AC97 for the guest device.

With Ubuntu 8.04, PulseAudio should work as well. Not sure if you have to start the pulseaudio daemon, check if with ps aux|grep pulseaudio.

[Doug Roberts]

Alsa works fine on the Linux host. VMWare running a Windows XP host does sound without any problems via the Linux hosts's Alsa driver.

VirtualBox's Windows XP guest has no sound when the Alsa driver and Soundblaster controller (the card that the Linux host has) are specified for the virtual machine. Niether is there any sound in the VirtualBox XP guest when the OSS audio driver or the Pulsaudio driver are specified for the virtual machine. There is also no volume sound icon at the bottom of the Windows XP guest's window.

[Frank Mehnert]

Please use the AC97 sound device then. Note that it is completely irrelevant which sound card the host provides. The AC97 as well as the SB16 device is virtual, every access to this hardware is redirected to the ALSA backend on the host.

So please select the AC97 device (which is much more tested than the SB16 device). If the sound still does not work for the XP guest, attach the VBox.log file to this defect and I will have a look.

[Doug Roberts]

Yep, using the AC97 sound device works. Thanks!

--Doug

[Technologov]

Since your problem was not host related, but guest related I decided to take a look.

In short Sound Blaster 16 *works* in XP guest. (although not perfectly, but this deserves a separate bug)

The reason it did not work for you, is because it is not plug-n-play device, so you must install drivers manually via "Control Panel->Add Hardware" in VM.

Host: Windows 7, x64, Core 2 Q6600, VBox 3.1.0-BETA1.

Guest: Windows XP

Please close this bug as invalid.

-Technologov