I am considering the use of VirtualBox's Seamless Mode to support a legacy app which we need to use. This app requires XP and doesn't support any newer operating systems. I have XP licenses available, and am hoping to run the app via XP in a a VirtualBox guest.
However, this app will not work if it detects it's being run in a "terminal services" session. We have tried to run the app using Windows XP Mode in Windows 7, but one of the problems with Windows XP Mode is that when Guest Extensions are enabled, it apparently uses an RDP session for the display, thus the app detects RDP is being used, assumes it's being run in terminal services, and does not allow license checkout, since it's not licensed to be run on Terminal Services. If we disable Guest Extensions, it works. However, this would disable necessary functionality. Also, Windows XP Mode doesn't work on Windows 10.
Before I go onsite and do a huge amount of work setting this up, can anyone tell me how the VBox Seamless Mode works? Does it use RDP, or some other protocol to display the guest windows seamlessly on the host's desktop, and can I prevent the guest apps from thinking they're being run on a terminal services session?
Thanks!
61 Answer
No VBox Seamless Mode for Desktop VMs does not use the network (and thus not RDP) to display Guest windows. virtualbox.exe runs within the users explorer session as a standard desktop application. Any interaction between the guest and the host are handled by the VBox virtualization layer, so intermediaries like the network are not required.
