| 1 | <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
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| 2 | <!DOCTYPE topic PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Topic//EN" "topic.dtd">
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| 3 | <topic xml:lang="en-us" id="guestadd-intro">
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| 4 | <title>Introduction to Guest Additions</title>
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| 5 |
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| 6 | <body>
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| 7 | <p>
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| 8 | As mentioned in <xref href="virtintro.dita#virtintro"/>, the Guest Additions
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| 9 | are designed to be installed <i>inside</i> a virtual
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| 10 | machine after the guest operating system has been installed. They
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| 11 | consist of device drivers and system applications that optimize
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| 12 | the guest operating system for better performance and usability.
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| 13 | See <xref href="guestossupport.dita#guestossupport"/> for details on what guest
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| 14 | operating systems are fully supported with Guest Additions by
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| 15 | <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/>.
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| 16 | </p>
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| 17 | <p>
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| 18 | The <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> Guest Additions for all supported guest
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| 19 | operating systems are provided as a single CD-ROM image file which
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| 20 | is called <filepath>VBoxGuestAdditions.iso</filepath>. This image
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| 21 | file is located in the installation directory of <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/>.
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| 22 | To install the Guest Additions for a particular VM, you mount this
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| 23 | ISO file in your VM as a virtual CD-ROM and install from there.
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| 24 | </p>
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| 25 | <p>
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| 26 | The Guest Additions offer the following features:
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| 27 | </p>
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| 28 | <ul>
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| 29 | <li>
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| 30 | <p><b outputclass="bold">Mouse pointer integration</b>. To
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| 31 | overcome the limitations for mouse support described in
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| 32 | <xref href="keyb_mouse_normal.dita#keyb_mouse_normal"/>, this feature provides
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| 33 | you with seamless mouse support. You will only have one mouse
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| 34 | pointer and pressing the Host key is no longer required to
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| 35 | <i>free</i> the mouse from being captured by the
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| 36 | guest OS. To make this work, a special mouse driver is
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| 37 | installed in the guest that communicates with the physical
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| 38 | mouse driver on your host and moves the guest mouse pointer
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| 39 | accordingly.
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| 40 | </p>
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| 41 | </li>
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| 42 | <li>
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| 43 | <p><b outputclass="bold">Shared folders.</b> These provide
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| 44 | an easy way to exchange files between the host and the guest.
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| 45 | Much like ordinary Windows network shares, you can tell
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| 46 | <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> to treat a certain host directory as a shared
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| 47 | folder, and <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> will make it available to the guest
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| 48 | operating system as a network share, irrespective of whether
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| 49 | the guest actually has a network. See
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| 50 | <xref href="sharedfolders.dita#sharedfolders"/>.
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| 51 | </p>
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| 52 | </li>
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| 53 | <li>
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| 54 | <p><b outputclass="bold">Better video support.</b> While the virtual graphics card which <ph
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| 55 | conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> emulates for any guest operating
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| 56 | system provides all the basic features, the custom video drivers that are installed with
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| 57 | the Guest Additions provide you with extra high and nonstandard video modes, as well as
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| 58 | accelerated video performance. </p>
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| 59 | <p>
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| 60 | In addition, with Windows, Linux, and Oracle Solaris guests,
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| 61 | you can resize the virtual machine's window if the Guest
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| 62 | Additions are installed. The video resolution in the guest
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| 63 | will be automatically adjusted, as if you had manually entered
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| 64 | an arbitrary resolution in the guest's
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| 65 | <b outputclass="bold">Display</b> settings. See
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| 66 | <xref href="intro-resize-window.dita#intro-resize-window"/>.
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| 67 | </p>
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| 68 | <p>
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| 69 | If the Guest Additions are installed, 3D graphics and 2D video
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| 70 | for guest applications can be accelerated. See
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| 71 | <xref href="guestadd-video.dita#guestadd-video"/>.
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| 72 | </p>
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| 73 | </li>
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| 74 | <li>
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| 75 | <p><b outputclass="bold">Seamless windows.</b> With this
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| 76 | feature, the individual windows that are displayed on the
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| 77 | desktop of the virtual machine can be mapped on the host's
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| 78 | desktop, as if the underlying application was actually running
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| 79 | on the host. See <xref href="seamlesswindows.dita#seamlesswindows"/>.
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| 80 | </p>
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| 81 | </li>
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| 82 | <li>
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| 83 | <p><b outputclass="bold">Generic host/guest communication
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| 84 | channels.</b> The Guest Additions enable you to control
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| 85 | and monitor guest execution. The <i>guest
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| 86 | properties</i> provide a generic string-based mechanism
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| 87 | to exchange data bits between a guest and a host, some of
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| 88 | which have special meanings for controlling and monitoring the
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| 89 | guest. See <xref href="guestadd-guestprops.dita#guestadd-guestprops"/>.
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| 90 | </p>
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| 91 | <p>
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| 92 | Additionally, applications can be started in a guest from the
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| 93 | host. See <xref href="guestadd-guestcontrol.dita#guestadd-guestcontrol"/>.
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| 94 | </p>
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| 95 | </li>
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| 96 | <li>
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| 97 | <p><b outputclass="bold">Time synchronization.</b> With
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| 98 | the Guest Additions installed, <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> can ensure that
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| 99 | the guest's system time is better synchronized with that of
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| 100 | the host.
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| 101 | </p>
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| 102 | <p>
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| 103 | For various reasons, the time in the guest might run at a
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| 104 | slightly different rate than the time on the host. The host
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| 105 | could be receiving updates through NTP and its own time might
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| 106 | not run linearly. A VM could also be paused, which stops the
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| 107 | flow of time in the guest for a shorter or longer period of
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| 108 | time. When the wall clock time between the guest and host only
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| 109 | differs slightly, the time synchronization service attempts to
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| 110 | gradually and smoothly adjust the guest time in small
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| 111 | increments to either catch up or lose time. When the
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| 112 | difference is too great, for example if a VM paused for hours
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| 113 | or restored from saved state, the guest time is changed
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| 114 | immediately, without a gradual adjustment.
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| 115 | </p>
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| 116 | <p>
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| 117 | The Guest Additions will resynchronize the time regularly. See
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| 118 | <xref href="changetimesync.dita">Tuning the Guest Additions Time Synchronization Parameters</xref> for how to configure the
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| 119 | parameters of the time synchronization mechanism.
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| 120 | </p>
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| 121 | </li>
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| 122 | <li>
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| 123 | <p><b outputclass="bold">Shared clipboard.</b> With the
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| 124 | Guest Additions installed, the clipboard of the guest
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| 125 | operating system can optionally be shared with your host
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| 126 | operating system. See <xref href="generalsettings.dita"/>.
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| 127 | </p>
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| 128 | </li>
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| 129 | <li>
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| 130 | <p><b outputclass="bold">Automated logins.</b> Also called
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| 131 | credentials passing. See <xref href="autologon.dita">Automated Guest Logins</xref>.
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| 132 | </p>
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| 133 | </li>
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| 134 | </ul>
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| 135 | <p>
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| 136 | Each version of <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/>, even minor releases, ship with
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| 137 | their own version of the Guest Additions. While the interfaces
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| 138 | through which the <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> core communicates with the Guest
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| 139 | Additions are kept stable so that Guest Additions already
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| 140 | installed in a VM should continue to work when <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> is
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| 141 | upgraded on the host, for best results, it is recommended to keep
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| 142 | the Guest Additions at the same version.
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| 143 | </p>
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| 144 | <p>
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| 145 | The Windows and Linux Guest Additions therefore check
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| 146 | automatically whether they have to be updated. If the host is
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| 147 | running a newer <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> version than the Guest Additions, a
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| 148 | notification with further instructions is displayed in the guest.
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| 149 | </p>
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| 150 | <p>
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| 151 | To disable this update check for the Guest Additions of a given
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| 152 | virtual machine, set the value of its
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| 153 | <codeph>/VirtualBox/GuestAdd/CheckHostVersion</codeph> guest
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| 154 | property to <codeph>0</codeph>. See
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| 155 | <xref href="guestadd-guestprops.dita#guestadd-guestprops"/>.
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| 156 | </p>
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| 157 | </body>
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| 158 |
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| 159 | </topic>
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