Moved to Virtual Box from VMPlayer, and all is not well

englishpremier · 19 Oct 2012 at 11:39

Is it me or is vitualbox a poor mans VMplayer?

I was using VMplayer in ubuntu 12.04 until my hard drive got screwed up.

I thought I'd replace it with Virtual Box, but I have a few issues.

1) It's far slower. Moving the mouse in VB is not smooth and instant like in VM

2) Graphics are fuzzy. I like to be able to rezise the screen and move it around. In VM the graphics were always crystal clear. In VB they it looks like 1080p monitor running at the wrong resolution.

3) I can't drag and drop files onto the VB desktop like I could in VM

4) I can't seem to easily mount CD drives and usb disks in VB. In VM I could just click on a little icon in the bottom right to release the resource from the host.

englishpremier · 19 Oct 2012 at 12:57

Nope haven't done that.

I guess that's like the extra stuff vmware prompts you to install automatically?

How do I install guest additions though when I don't have any tabs/menus at the top of my VB window

EDIT: Turns out I was in scale mode. Yet when I exit scale mode I'm left with a blank screen.

englishpremier · 19 Oct 2012 at 13:31

Turns out I had to up the video memory to 128mb that solved the blank screen.

The whole window sizing isn't as easy as VMplayer but I'm getting the hang of it.

Seems quite snappy now that guest additions is installed. I can't install the direct3d option in guest additions as it keeps saying that my system is in safe mode. It's not.

englishpremier · 19 Oct 2012 at 13:59

Installed the extentions pack, and exited the VB, then restarted it all.

Still can't mount USB.

VMplayer had no problems at all mounting usb drives.

This is frustrating

englishpremier · 19 Oct 2012 at 16:48

The extension pack doesn't do much though other than USB support i've found.

VMplayer does USB out of the box, without mucking about setting up filters.

Now that i've got virtualbox working ok I quite like it, but it's still lacking drag and drop onto the desktop.

englishpremier · 31 Oct 2012 at 23:09

I couldn't careless about openness really. I just want something that works and works well.

Now that I've got used to VB it's working ok for me, and seems plenty quick enough for what I want to do.

It's still not as polished as VM though.

For a start you can't simple drag the screen to change it's size without it having to enter some mode where you lose the icons on the border.