Shortcut to start VM from host

[j-retired]

..........................
This does indeed work well.  One warning though; shut down XP before updating from Synaptic otherwise you may find yourself with a new version of VirtualBox that is incompatible with your saved machine state.  Guess how I know

Russell.

Oooops!!!   Yes, I didn't think about that - guess I've been lucky so far!  TY for mentioning it!

 

j

[The Chief]

Or even better to open up a program within the VM directly from the host OS?

It used to be possible.  Back with PCLOS 2007, I installed VirtualBox, then installed XP and Quicken and when it was all done, there was a Quicken icon on the desktop that opened Quicken directly. 

When I did it again with 2010, it wasn't there. Maybe a KDE3/4 thing...

[Fargo]

Or even better to open up a program within the VM directly from the host OS?

It used to be possible.  Back with PCLOS 2007, I installed VirtualBox, then installed XP and Quicken and when it was all done, there was a Quicken icon on the desktop that opened Quicken directly. 

When I did it again with 2010, it wasn't there. Maybe a KDE3/4 thing...

That would have been pretty cool.  It might still be possible with some tweeking.  But I've sent the machine on to my wife and won't likely work that hard to get those final tweeks done.  She is pretty happy with it so far.  Better than dual booting.  Although I've noticed that XP seems to always be running in a window anyway.