How to use VirtualBox guest controls with Microsoft Office?

Question

I'm running Ubuntu 11.04 with VirtualBox and a Windows XP VM. This VM has Office 2007 installed on it. How can I use Guest Controls so that Office files (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx, etc.) open in Office on the VM when launched from Linux?

Answer 1

As far as I know, this feature is not available in Virtual Box (at least I cannot find documentation relating to it.) It is available on other platforms, like Parallels on OSX and it's called Shared Applications.

Answer 2

It appears you can do what you suggest, but it will require some finesse and bash scripting

• start by testing 'VBoxManage guestcontrol exec vmname winword.exe -arguments mydoc.doc' to make Word launch and open a document
• Once that is working, use VBoxmanage startvm "vmname" to start the vm if it isn't running
• Next, put them all together in a script with a commandline parameter that takes the filename as input
• Finally, create an action in gnome that allows you to right click and launch the bash script you wrote with the filename as a parameter.

Have fun! Let us know what you come up with.