Shared folder suport for OS/2 [Fixed in SVN]

[Dave Durgee]

VirtualBox 3.2.8 does not completely support OS/2 or its successor, eCS, in several areas. At present shared folders are unsupported, making access to external resources more difficult. Bit the greater issue is documented in the manual as follows:

"Certain rare guest operating systems like OS/2 make use of very esoteric processor instructions that are not supported with our software virtualization. For virtual machines that are configured to contain such an operating system, hardware virtualization is enabled automatically."

This may be sufficient for those whose system offers hardware virtualization, but there are many systems without such a feature. One such example is my Intel DG41TY main board equipped with an Intel Q8200 processor complex. This system is currently running Linux Mint 8 x64 and I was very disappointed to be unable to use VB on it to run the new eCS 2.0 here. Additional examples are too numerous to include.

As OS/2 guests run on Windows hosts in the original Virtual PC product offered by Connectix, these "very esoteric processor instructions" must be a part of that ground-breaking application. Certainly if these "very esoteric processor instructions" could be virtualized on the processors available at that time it should be significantly easier to do so today.

I believe this omission from the current product should be corrected.

[Sander van Leeuwen]

We have no intention to support OS/2 with software virtualization. The considerable resources required to do so are not less than 5 years ago. There is no business case that warrants such an investment from our end.

Shared folders support for OS/2 hasn't been decided on yet, but I would not hold my breath.

[Lewis Rosenthal]

Time to revisit this.

What is required to get shared folders working for OS/2 guests?

Hardware virtualization (somehow added to this ticket, though completely separate from the description) should no longer be an issue, as 99% of modern hardware has such support.

[bird]

Hi Lewis, some of us old OS/2 guys here needs to find some time and implement it. It has to be after hours, though, since there is currently no paying customer demand for it, I think. I may have some time the next 2-3 weeks, but as usual there's a few things I have to do first (libc, kBuild).

• bird

[bird]

We delivered this in 6.0 or shortly thereafter, I think. So, closing.