Run Windows XP Applications Seamlessly on your Linux Desktop

i get up to step(or stage whichever you wan’t to call it) 188, or the stage where i’m starting up remote desktop (i’m not running kubutu but ubuntu)

i get an error
upon trying to boot the vm i get this error Failed to start VM execution (VERR_PDM_CFG_MISSING_DRIVER_NAME).
Result Code:
0×80004005
Component:
Console
Interface:
IConsole {1dea5c4b-0753-4193-b909-22330f64ec45}

I tried using sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup multiple times and i also reinstalled vbox using synaptic package manager, which didn’t work.
sudo modprobe vboxdrv doesn’t not give me an output as it should.

help much appreciated

ok i fixed my problem and i finished the guide no other hitches. I had to totally uninstall and reinstall virtualbox but when i got back to 188 i had the same problem with not being able to connect. Turns out it was because i was using sudo in front of the command!

anyways is there anyway you could put on the end of the guide how to set it up to start on startup and as well whenever i minimize xp firefox it “blocks” out other windows and the startbar.

Great to see you got it working

Do you mean run on system startup or run when you login to gnome?

I do not recommend this because windows xp will use a lot of ram even when not in use, this will slow down the performance of your linux host considerably depending on the amount of ram you have, if in the future you forget about having xp (

I have also a problem with step 188. The message is : Connection refused. I tried the command also with /media/sd1/ etc. instead of c:\ etc. I do not understand the path anyhow because there is no c drive in linux, or what am I missing? Your help would be appreciated.

Is the virtual machine running when you ran those commands and had the system logged into and out for the fist time and have you also ran the commands in step 187?

rdesktop -rsound:remote -A -s “c:\seamlessrdp\seamlessrdpshell.exe C:\Shell\WinShellEx\WinShellEx.exe” -c “c:\seamlessrdp” localhost:6666 -u “X” -p password -N (188/210)

c:\seamlessrdp\seamlessrdpshell.exe C:\Shell\WinShellEx\WinShellEx.exe << location of the startup program for geoshell inside the guest os, not on the linux host, thats why c:\ is used

Alt+F2 and run VirtualBox, then start the virtual machine, once it has started watch it login and logoff, minimise the window, run the commands in step 187 and then in 188 there should be no problems with this step

Shouldn’t localhost:6666 in that rdesktop string be replaced with :3389 ?

Shouldn’t localhost:6666 in that rdesktop string be replaced with “IP of VirtualMachine”:3389 ?

*Sorry for double comment, a part got left out the first time.

At 187 port forwards between localhost:6666 and the vm’s port 3389:

VBoxManage setextradata “XP” “VBoxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/rd/GuestPort” 3389
VBoxManage setextradata “XP” “VBoxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/rd/HostPort” 6666

It works fine in VirtualBox 1.4.0

Nice guid & awesome desktop integration!
Thank’s for the effort. 8)

Just one hick, can’t get sounds working in seamlessRDP.
There’s no hardware for it found. ???
Idea’s?

Oke, seems to work with -rsound
(without “:remote”)

Thanks

The -rsound:remote was to make VirtualBox output the sound directly to alsa, on the 31st slide sound was enabled and the output was set to alsa, by removing :remote the sound is now redirected through the virtual network connection, try changing the sound output settings of the virtual machine to select the correct one.

First, thank you for the time you spent on this. I’m at work, so I haven’t been able to try it out yet. Geoshell seems like an excellent idea to limit the memory overhead running full-blown explorer.exe creates. My question is have you tried this with WMWare Server? I like Virtualbox, but I cannot get it to recognise my USB GPS that I use for Streets and trips virtualized, so I fell back to VMWare. I feel comfortable with every step, except I’m not 100% about how to do the port forwarding / host-only networking with VMWare. Any insight or additions you could add to make it smoother for those of us choosing to use VMWare? I’ll be playing with it tonight and if I get everything going with VMWare I’ll post what I did. Thanks in advance.

Doesn’t matter what I set in the VM; alsa, oss or null, it doesn’t work with the “:remote” in RDP
Does the output to alsa enhance sound performance?
Otherwise I don’t mind.

(ps: I use 64bit feisty)

I don’t think vmware needs any ports to be forwarded, you will need to modify the scripts to run:

vmrun start “/__location__/VirtualMachineName.vmx”

to get the virtual machine to start, i have not used vmware before, i’ve mostly only used virtualbox so i can’t be much help, sorry

Thanks a lot for this guide. As a small integration addition, one can right-click My Documents inside virtual Win and select target to be the Linux /home/user/ folder, which is symlinked in Shared folder. This way Win and Linux share the same home-folder.

Should this guide work for Win2000 also, for speed?

Suggestion: Search your favorite media-supplyer for eg: WinXP Stripped to the Bone Edition or Mini2k (Lite)

I followed these instructions exactly, tried again with an untouched version of XP sp2, followed exactly again, and I still get :
Autoselected keyboard map en-us
ERROR: connect: Connection refused
after I issue the rdesktop command. I’m on Ubuntu (ultimate 1.4). I would really love to get this working.

Any suggestions?
(there were some updates to VirtualBox in the last couple days, not sure if that affects anything)

Hello Ace,

Great layout of the tutorial.

I am stuck at step 116: I execute the command
use net x: \\vboxsrv\shared
but I get:
system error 53
network path not found

Actually as I use ubuntu I could not follow the intial part of the tutorial, but my username is in the vboxuser group.

I use static IP addresses 192.168.0.xxx but running ipconfig on the virtualbox, I noticed that it has been given 10.0.2.15 and the gateway is 10.0.2.2 (I can ping it but not access it as it requires a password)

any suggestion?

BTW: I could not find the slides to set up the network and usb in the virtual machine settings section.

Cheers

Hello again ace:

Ignore me!! I still have to learn how to read! :oops:
it is vboxsvr not vboxsrv

Installed and working, however… how can I configure the keyboard to be en-gb instead of en-us? I have seen that in one of the screenshots you have done just that.

Also, I noticed that you did not mention how to configure the network and the USB page of the VirtualBox settings: are the defaults ok?

Cheers

Check This slide out: http://ace2016.net/seamless2/49.html

That is where the language was changed from en-us to en-gb, it is at the very start of the install that i did it

I do not use usb so i did not configure it sorry, the network defaults are fine

Thanks Ace. I suggest you change the caption for that slide that now reads:
“Just click next, who cares about the settings, its running in a VM and we’ll never even see the clock ever again (49/210)”

Tried to change the keyboard settings but they don’t stick. Not that I care too much though, I do all the writing in Ubuntu in these days. The USB issue instead bugs me a bit as I was really hoping I could use Itunes to synch my iPod straight from Linux.

Changes have been made, thanks

Kind of assumed most people knew in detail about the windows xp install procedure so i didn’t go into detail

Hi ace,

I have problem on step 135 after I try to log in it logs me off and can’t log in anymore, even after restart.

That is what it should do, thats why 3 users X,Y and Z were craeted, Y autologs in on xp startup and logs out again (to get around the fact that xp will not allow remote rdp before a user has logged in and out), X installs geoshell(less resource usage) and X is what we remote desktop to, and z is just a backup incase we need to fix anything, thats how its setup

for some reason when i launch the rdesktop it loads in full screen. i cant for the life of me get the simplest program to load in seamless.

yes i did log off and i repeated the command but its not seamless’ing.

hm… strange, i followed these instructions myself yesterday and i had no problems. You might try just running vritualbox in non seamless mode and using its built in mode for rdesktop, pressing right control and L (if you have left right control as your modifier key) its fine as long as there is a window or the start menu showing, but when its an empty desktop the wallpaper shows, but it doesn’t put the windows apps in your taskbar and keeps everything as one task in the taskbar and in alt+tab and the compiz/kde switchers, so i guess if you want all the windows stuff kept as one thats good

looks like it was a simple error.
in order for this to work i have to have “Fast user switching” and the other option under control panel - users - change the way users log on - enabled.
also, no one can be logged on to the machine.
i was actually doing this on my real desktop. it was horribly slow for some reason but then again i was connecting using my access point wirelessly.

thanks, ace. you da man!

So, I had my seamless XP desktop working nicely using the original ubuntuforum howto, but with Explorer.exe as my shell, and decided to take it a step further with this howto and use an alternate shell. Now, I can’t get either setup to load seamlessly. Please help! Stupidly I forgot to snapshot before starting this endevour, so I can’t just roll back.

Firstly, as I feel this is really distribution independent, I won’t bother with that formality.

Secondly, I have everything loaded in the correct order. When I start my virtual machine, my stub user logs-on then off, at which point I am able to connect using the rdesktop string.

However, when I connect to “localhost” (NAT or Host) I am simply taken to the console. It appears that VirtualBox is taking control of the local 3389 port, and forwarding the console there (port forwarding didn’t work for me).

When I connect using the virtual machine’s IP address (I went back to Host IP, so its got an IP on the lan), rdesktop functions correctly in terms of logging in automatically, yet instead of being presented with the full rdesktop screen and later having the seamless start menu, I am left with the full rdesktop screen. Log-off/log-on does not remedy a thing, as XP is already listening for RDP. I appears that something is blocking seamlessrdpshell.exe from executing successfully, although after logon WinShellEx.exe is running.

Any ideas? This is driving me nuts, and has already frittered away most of my day.

unbelievable… after that long-winded post, I have the stupid thing working. Thanks Paul for posting your experience prior to mine, it has solved my problem as well.

FAST USER SWITCHING must be turned on.

AAAAAAGH!!!

Hey, pretty nice work here!
I got to the step where I did “net x: …”. It worked properly but now I can’t open My Computer. If I let it run for a while I can see the networked drive but I can’t open it or anything else inside My Computer’s window.

Also, the copy+paste function which was working is now messed up. I might get to a solution later in the walkthrough. I’m around step 108 now.

sir i instold kde tool on my system
and run the frfist step but in resent menu not dysplay
your screan shot path plz help me