VirtualBox on Home Server

[Danielm862]

Hi,

I am running a Windows 7 virtual machine on VirtualBox headless on my Windows Home Server 2011.

The server itself is a dual core 2GHz AMD Athlon with 4GB RAM, and 4 hard drives of different sizes and capacities.

I use the virtual machine on a tablet using RDP, but when i'm using it it is very very slow...
Im not sure if I am doing something wrong, or if the server just isn't capable, but loading Word 2010 Starter takes about 1-2 minutes. Making it near unusable!

Does anyone know any tips/tricks of VirtualBox that could help the situation?

(Just as a note, I do have a student licence of Server 2008R2 if that's better, and for hardware my budget would max out around £180-200 - If necessary)

Thanks!

 

[Danielm862]

Unfortunately my outdated motherboard doesn't support more RAM

I am connecting over a gigabit LAN network, so that shouldn't be a problem.

I am just setting up an XP virtual machine, which does seem a LOT faster, so I may end up sticking with that.

I will get the benchmarks done as soon as the install is complete. I will post the results.

Thanks again!

 

[Danielm862]

I found a Win7 VM to be faster than an XP one. I didn't do any benchmarking though, so that might just be in my head.

The first question is how are you using RDP? Are you:
1)RDP'ing into the Win7 session?
2)RDP'ing into Windows Server and then using the VM through that?
3)RDPing directly into VirtualBox using VirtualBox RDP?

Have you set your VM to adjust for best performance?
(Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\System -> Advanced System Properties -> Performance -> Settings... -> Adjust for best performance)

What OS is your tablet and what RDP client are you using? What's the performance like if you use the latest native Windows one from a laptop/desktop/whatever?

I am using VRDP directly to Virtualbox-headless, things like start menu responds as expected, just loading things that is more of a task than it should be.
All performance settings are at minimum, I am a speed freak and don't really care for any Aero effect and what not

The tablet is on order, I am setting this up in preparation (should have made that clear in OP), but it will be Android 4.3.

Performance is the same when I RDP from my Windows Phone too.

If you are looking to upgrade your system perhaps we can find a cheap replacement motherboard and some cheap compatible memory for you? Do you have the exact specs of the processor and motherboard?

It would be in your budget if it is DDR2 your looking for and just swap the processor to the new compatible motherboard and memory.

Processor is an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+, ideally I would prefer a lower powered one if possible, but when cool'n'quiet kicks in this one is not all bad.
Currently on 4X1GB DDR2, the motherboard is just one I happened to have lying around when I started building the server, no idea where it came from, my guess is an OEM.

That's hardware related. Requires better system.

One thing I have noticed is 2D acceleration is greyed out on VirtualBox settings!!
How do I enable this?

 

[Danielm862]

Guest extensions are installed on both 7 and the XP machines.

I am just installing a new graphics driver on the server, hopefully it will wake itself up...


Cheers for all the help.