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