Portable VirtualBox [VB launcher utility]

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Master of Dice · #46 Post by **Master of Dice** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 7:00 am

Now I get a VirtualBox error:

Translated from German:

VirtualBox - Critical Error
The COM-Object for VirtualBox couldn't be created.

The application will get terminated.
Callee RC: REGDB_E_CLASSNOTREG (0x80040154)

And I don't have the small shield anymore that asks for admin rights.
When I start it as admin, everything seems to work.

m^(2) · #47 Post by **m^(2)** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 2:36 pm

So probably manifest doesn't work.

I'll try to get around it somehow in a few days, maybe w/out manifest.

Queue · #48 Post by **Queue** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 3:04 pm

Here's a screenshot showing the differences between your manifest and a working one from a NSIS launcher. I highlighted the differences.

http://img239.imageshack.us/img239/3293/manifestvr4.gif

The main one that sticks out to me is on the left, the difference between "1" and "APP_MANIFEST"

The problem may also be the lack of <description> or one of the minor version numbers; I'm not really sure. Just giving you some info to work with.

Queue

Edit: Changed image into a link to fix thread width.

m^(2) · #49 Post by **m^(2)** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 3:46 pm

Thanks Queue, that's a valuable note.
My very first manifest was very very similar to the NSIS one.

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>

<assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestVersion="1.0">
  <assemblyIdentity version="1.0.0.0"
    processorArchitecture="X86"
    name="VirtualBox Portable"
    type="win32" />
  <description>VirtualBox Portable</description>
  <trustInfo xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v3">
    <security>
      <requestedPrivileges>
        <requestedExecutionLevel level="requireAdministrator" uiAccess="false"/>
      </requestedPrivileges>
    </security>
  </trustInfo>
</assembly>

You might be right about the APP_MANIFEST thing, I'll investigate when I'm at home ( in a few days

).
The problem is that there's no guide to manifests. Just some partial info that is often badly written. I.e. I don't know what's assemblyIdentity version, though I searched quite extensively. Does it relate somehow to VersionInfo? The manifest you showed suggests that no, but there's nothing about it in the net.
Currently, I use linker to embed the manifest, if it's needed I'll try to get mt.exe (manifest tool), it adds manifests to existing executables.

m^(2) · #50 Post by **m^(2)** » Wed Jun 25, 2008 8:07 am

I checked and found several other programs that have manifest and they all have it named "1". I couldn't wait, so I installed Visual Studio here and changed it.
Download.
Now I googled for APP_MANIFEST and found that most entries are

Code: Select all

#define APP_MANIFEST 1

I guess that my source forgot to add it.

Master of Dice · #51 Post by **Master of Dice** » Wed Jun 25, 2008 10:33 am

a) it shows me the shield icon
b) it asks for admin rights
c) it starts without errors
d) it ends without errors

sounds very good. Thx.
I will try it the next days.

m^(2) · #52 Post by **m^(2)** » Thu Jun 26, 2008 1:04 am

Master of Dice wrote:a) it shows me the shield icon
b) it asks for admin rights
c) it starts without errors
d) it ends without errors

sounds very good. Thx.
I will try it the next days.

Yuppie! Took long, but I'm happy that it works.

m^(2) · #53 Post by **m^(2)** » Fri Jun 27, 2008 5:31 am

Some new bugs found & fixed.

Code: Select all

[!] Windows 2003 compatibility fix
[!] In some cases updating image paths didn't work
[~] Better installation failover

Download.

m^(2) · #54 Post by **m^(2)** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 7:37 am

New version.

Code: Select all

[+] If you start VirtualBoxPortable while there's another instance performing uninstallation - uninstallation is stopped so you can start up faster
[+] You can tweak the installation process, so you get better startup performance at the cost lower functionality
[~] Slight performance improvement
[~] Safer VBox service handling
[!] In rare cases missing error message
[!] Bugs in uninstaller tray icon handling

garbanzo · #55 Post by **garbanzo** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 9:33 am

sorry to butt into this thread, but can someone give me a nutshell description of what i can do with this? does it essentially create a portable OS? can programs be installed on the virtualized OS?

i would love to stick windows 3.1 into this and resurrect some of the old classic games i grew up on. is this possible?

m^(2) · #56 Post by **m^(2)** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 10:31 am

garbanzo wrote:sorry to butt into this thread, but can someone give me a nutshell description of what i can do with this? does it essentially create a portable OS? can programs be installed on the virtualized OS?

i would love to stick windows 3.1 into this and resurrect some of the old classic games i grew up on. is this possible?

Yes, you can get a "portable"(*) OS this way. Such OS runs as a program on the host machine and doesn't know about this fact. You can install whatever you want on it, here's no difference between running on a physical or virtual machine.

Can you install Windows 3.1? It doesn't support modern hardware and Virtual Hardware simulated by VBox isn't ancient, though looks pretty generic, so there's a chance.

What are other uses?
- Isolation. Even if your VM catches a virus or is hacked, your real one is safe(*2).
- Saving / restoring execution states. If you caught a virus, or for another reason don't want the latest changes to the system to be saved, you just revert to the previous one.
These 2 features let you i.e. make a very safe internet browser. Use Linux (i.e. Damn Small Linux) with Firefox, revert on quit.

- Running different OSes on one PC w/out restart. Useful i.e. for testing purposes.
- Running several machines at once.
- Probably 1000 more.

What you pay for these possibilities is performance. VMs are slower, though not much (unless it's QEMU w/out KQEMU). Also, you need enough hard disk space and memory to host several operating systems.
As with non-virtual systems, installing Windows on a flash drive is NOT recommended (unless it's a SSD drive) because Windows performs a lot of writes, which kills flash drives...

Remarks:
(*) - VirtualBox Portable requires admin rights unless there's VBox installed on the host machine already. So for some uses it's not really portable. You can use QEMU Manager for these.
(*2) - Unless there's a VM bug. VMWare is known to have one that in some cases lets a virus escape and infect your host OS.

ashghost · #57 Post by **ashghost** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 11:03 am

@garbanzo:
http://www.virtualbox.org/

Presently, VirtualBox runs on Windows, Linux, Macintosh and OpenSolaris hosts and supports a large number of guest operating systems including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4 and 2.6), and OpenBSD.

garbanzo · #58 Post by **garbanzo** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 8:40 pm

thank you m^(2) for the detailed reply, i truly appreciate it! not that i have a clearer understanding of what this software does, i'm excited to work with it.

my only computer is a 5 year old laptop so i doubt i'll be boxing XP to use as a safe environment - sandboxie covers me there. but there are other interesting possibilities here. one, as i said, is to relive some of the old 16bit games i have hanging around. perhaps dosbox is better suited for the hardware emulation that many require, but it will be a fun experiment anyway.

thanks for the note about running off of a flash drive. i mostly use portable apps from home though. i keep then on an external drive and just call them when i need them. that way i can reinstall XP on my internal drive without a lot of setup after the fact. plus it keeps my registry clean etc.

ashghost - i looked at a table of host OS's supported but didn't see windows 3.x there. glad you found that info for me. i'll let you know how it goes!

Master of Dice · #59 Post by **Master of Dice** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 12:12 am

With the new version, I don't get any TrayIcon. Only on closing of VB, the icon appears for a short time. With the original launcher, I had the option to show or hide the main vbox window. Would be great if you could include this also.
Thx m^(2)

m^(2) · #60 Post by **m^(2)** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 12:28 am

Master of Dice wrote:With the new version, I don't get any TrayIcon. Only on closing of VB, the icon appears for a short time. With the original launcher, I had the option to show or hide the main vbox window. Would be great if you could include this also.
Thx m^(2)

Does the tray icon disappear before uninstallation succeeds?
There's no permanent tray icon by design, this launcher is meant to be as invisible as possible.
Hiding a window - well, if I want to support multiple windows (and I do, I don't like incomplete solutions), it's a lot of work. But I can try, just need one hint. How is user supposed to hide/show these windows? Tray icon and global hotkeys are out of question.

BTW let me recommend you PowerPro. It's some kind of Windows UI extension. One of 1000 things it can do w/out requiring you to write scripts is minimizing windows to tray icon - in my case it happens after RClick on a minimize button. That's what I do to hide VMs.

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Portable VirtualBox [VB launcher utility]

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