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On 11/21/2011 12:16 PM, Neil Winchurst wrote: > Thanks for that. With much struggle and searching the internet for help > I have managed to install the guest additions on two of my VM's, at > least it appeared to go OK. However it does not look any different when > I run them. So how can I tell that they are indeed installed I wonder? > The mouse pointer for example always did move from guest to host without > any problems. And the VBox window does not look any different. > > Puzzled, > > Neil > Ok, now I follow you - sorry for not realising what you meant earlier. Anthony's explanation is spot-on: the extensions pack is a one-off install on the VM host, added to the VirtualBox install itself and the guest additions need to be installed individually inside each VM on the guest's OS. The version numbers of VirtualBox itself, the guest additions on each host and the extension pack should all be the same (most guests will prompt for you to upgrade their additions software automatically when you upgrade VirtualBox on the host). It would be helpful if you say what all your VMs are - on most mainstream OS flavours it's no more complicated than starting the VM and choosing "Devices > Install Guest Additions" from the VM's window menu, which will mount a virtual CD containing the software on the host. On Microsoft guests, normally autoplay will kick in, the wizard will start and you just follow the prompts and reboot. Failing that, just manually launch the installer from the guest's virtual CD drive. For linux, normally it's the same process - most modern flavours will simply automount and show you the autorun prompt (Ubuntu, Suse, Fedora & Mint at least all do this). At worst, on a linux host do: sudo mount /dev/sr0 /your/chosen/mount && sudo sh /your/chosen/mount/VBoxLinuxAdditions.run You will need to do this on linux installs without a GUI, for example, where the autorun obviously won't work. Additionally the compilation of the VBox guest tools *will* fail if you don't have the current kernel headers installed on the guest however: sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r` debian/ubuntu/mint/etc sudo yum install kernel-headers-`uname -r` redhat/fedora/suse/centos/mandriva/etc Install DKMS where possible on linux guests to trigger automatic rebuilds of kernel modules when you upgrade the system. It's worth checking the package managers of some of the less popular/supported OS flavours if you use them - Gentoo has ebuilds available for guest additions (you'll need to add them from an overlay though), Arch has them through pacman, FreeBSD has it on ports (doesn't work properly), etc. Anyway, let me know what flavours your VMs are so I can point you in the right direction. The easiest way to tell if the guest additions are installed properly is if you can dynamically resize the VM guest's desktop by simply grabbing a corner of it's VBox window on your host and dragging it about. Your USB issue should be resolved if you have installed the guest-additions correctly and the extensions pack on the host - delete your USB filter, they're unnecessary for normal operation. Cheers, Mat -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq