= Frequently Asked Questions for end users (User FAQ) = Here you can find common questions, frequently asked on the [wiki:"Community" VirtualBox mailing lists and IRC channel], along with their answers. Please consult this list every time you run into a problem that is not described in the [wiki:"Downloads" User Manual]. Note that we update the [wiki:"Downloads" User Manual] on a regular basis, and information that first shows up on this page is moved to the User Manual regularly. As a result, please do check the User Manual also, especially the "Troubleshooting" section. Also make sure to check whether you are running the latest version of !VirtualBox. This particular FAQ is for end-user issues only; you may want to look at the [wiki:"Developer_FAQ" Developer FAQ] and [wiki:"Licensing_FAQ" Licensing FAQ] for additional topics. == General == * Sometimes !VirtualBox fails to start with a message on the lines of {{{ Failed to create VirtualBox COM object Callee RC: 0x80470007 }}} This usually means that the !VirtualBox COM server was unable to start up, and is often a sign of problems in your installation of !VirtualBox. In many cases this problem can be solved simply by reinstalling !VirtualBox. Reinstalling will simply set up the !VirtualBox program files again, and will not affect any virtual machines which you have created. If this does not help, and you wish to investigate the problem further yourself, try starting the !VirtualBox COM server (the program VBoxSVC in the !VirtualBox program folder) from a command prompt or a DOS box. You may be able to see what is going wrong from error messages when the server starts. Please do not open bug reports when you get this error before you have tried the other available support channels ([http://forums.virtualbox.org/ forums], [wiki:"Mailing_lists" mailing lists] and [wiki:"IRC" IRC]). * "How come it doesn't detect my nVidia/ATI/whatever graphics card?" Because the guest sees a __virtual__ graphics card, not the host graphics card. The virtual graphics card provides the necessary VESA and VGA features to make the guest operative systems work OK. Additional features, like higher resolutions, is provided by the graphics driver included with the guest additions. More details on how to install guest additions and features of the virtual graphics card can be found in the manual. * I use !VirtualBox 1.5.0 and one of my VMs has become inaccessible. I get the following error message: '''"Hard disk X is already attached to a machine Y."''' But I'm sure I didn't attach this hard disk to any other VM or anything like that. Most likely, you have defined one or more shared folders for this VM but later deleted these folders on the host (or made them inaccessible in some other way). This was a known issue of version 1.5.0, but it's been '''fixed with !VirtualBox 1.5.2.''' If you can't upgrade, you can try to re-create the inaccessible shared folders. You may find these shared folders in the .xml file mentioned in the error message -- open it in any text editor, search for the text ` [Shows a list of groups for that login name] # useradd -g -G ,,...,vboxusers }}} These changes will only take effect after the users have logged out and back in again. * If the kernel module refuses to load with a message saying '''"Error inserting vboxdrv: Invalid argument",''' check (as root) the output of the "dmesg" command, and see "Troubleshooting" -> "Linux hosts" in the [wiki:"Downloads" User Manual] for solutions. * If '''USB doesn't work,''' check your usbfs permissions. See "Troubleshooting" -> "Linux hosts" in the [wiki:"Downloads" User Manual] for a solution. == Windows hosts == * Windows Vista hosts might show an error about a COM server not being accessible. This is a problem of our installation routine which we have not figured out yet. To fix the problem, open a command prompt shell and enter: {{{ cd \Programs\InnoTek VirtualBox VBoxSVC.exe /ReRegServer regsvr32.exe VBoxC.dll }}} ''(Should not occur with current versions anymore)'' * Installing the guest on '''fixed size''' disk images. Until version 1.5.4, !VirtualBox creates a sparse file if the user selects 'fixed size' when creating a virtual disk image. That means that the file is created and its length on the real hard disk is defined but the file content is still not allocated. When trying to install a guest OS on this image, the first write accesses to a sector in the middle of the image will be delayed for a long time on Windows hosts. This might confuse the guest and make installing a guest impossible (for example, '''creating a partition fails'''). Starting with !VirtualBox 1.5.6 we will write the whole file once during creation. Users of current versions should select a ''dynamically expanding'' image which does not have this limitation. ''(Will be fixed in !VirtualBox 1.5.6)'' == Windows Vista guests == * There is no networking in Windows Vista guests initially because, unfortunately, with Vista, Microsoft dropped driver support for the virtual AMD PCnet card that we are providing. See "Troubleshooting" -> "Windows guests" in the [wiki:"Downloads" User Manual] for a solution. The !VirtualBox Guest Additions contain the AMD PCnet driver. == Windows 98 guests == * '''High CPU load while running Windows 98''' Windows 98 does not execute the 'hlt' instruction, which temporarily turns off the CPU, when it has no work to do. Download and install rain20 from [http://www.benchtest.com/downloads/index.html here]. * '''Poor graphical output in Windows 98''' Unlike more modern systems, Windows 98 does not come with a driver which will work with the !VirtualBox graphics card, so it falls back to using it as a 16 color VGA card. While innotek do not provide Guest Additions for Windows 98, the Display Doctor 7 Beta suite by the company !SciTech does contain a driver which will allow you to use higher color and resolution graphics modes. Please note that neither innotek nor !SciTech support nor accept liability for the use of this program. Display Doctor 7 Beta requires activation codes to work. We understand that the free activation code for Display Doctor 6 also applies to version 7 Beta: [http://www.scitechsoft.com/ftp/sdd/regcodes.txt]. You might also want to look at the following site pointed out by users of !VirtualBox, which also provides VESA drivers for Windows 98: [http://www.bearwindows.boot-land.net/vbe9x.htm]. Please be aware that innotek provides this link in good faith, but cannot take responsibility for the site or the software which it refers to.