Windows 8 Phone not recognised in Windows 8 virtual machine

Nick Talbot

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(Originally posted at https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=53054&sid=9704580846e07006f42616f082ae3e2c )

MacBook Pro host OS X 10.8, with Windows 8 Pro 64-bit running in a Virtual Box:

I have a Nokia Lumina 920 Windows 8 Phone, and it does not register properly in the Virtual machine when I selected the phone USB device to be forwarded to the Windows 8 virtual machine.

The phone works fine in the native OS, i.e. If I plug in the phone, it can be 'seen' fine by the Mac version of the Windows Phone companion software for syncing the phone etc.

When running Windows 8 in the Virtual Box, if I choose 'USB Devices/Nokia Phone' to forward the phone to the virtual machine, the phone disappears from the Host OS, and appears (partially) in the Windows virtual machine as expected.

However, the Windows 8 Phone companion app says it can't see the phone.

On closer inspection, looking in the Windows Device Manager, I can see that the phone appears in the USB device list as 'USB Composite Device' with a yellow questaion mark and an error code 'Incorrect function' or something similar.

Is VirtualBox not 'fully' forwarding the phone/USB to the Virtual machine in some way?

Any help appreciated, thanks.
 

Daniel Ratcliffe

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Judging by this, I'm thinking if you want to use Windows 8 to manage your device, you'll need to use Windows 8 through bootcamp. I do it on my Mac using BootCamp. I plug in my HTC TITAN with Windows Phone, Zune opens up and it recognises my device. I know it's not the answer you wanted to hear, but that's my take on it.
 

Nick Talbot

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Judging by this, I'm thinking if you want to use Windows 8 to manage your device, you'll need to use Windows 8 through bootcamp. I do it on my Mac using BootCamp. I plug in my HTC TITAN with Windows Phone, Zune opens up and it recognises my device. I know it's not the answer you wanted to hear, but that's my take on it.

Yeah, I have BootCamp already with Windows 7, that I really don't want to upgrade (for various development reasons, mainly to keep a .NET 4 VS2010 development installation, and a separate Win8 .NET 4.5 stack).

It seems crazy that Windows 8 works fine in a virtual machine, but the phone won't!
 

Daniel Ratcliffe

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Yeah, I have BootCamp already with Windows 7, that I really don't want to upgrade (for various development reasons, mainly to keep a .NET 4 VS2010 development installation, and a separate Win8 .NET 4.5 stack).

It seems crazy that Windows 8 works fine in a virtual machine, but the phone won't!

There's software for doing it in Windows 7 as well. I believe it's only a preview though. http://www.windowsphone.com/en-US/how-to/wp8/start/..\windows-phone-app-for-desktop
 

Nick Talbot

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The Mac version of the Windows Companion app connects to the phone no problem. The reason I want to connect inside the virtual machine running Windows 8 is that is where VS 2012 and the Windows Phone 8 SDK in installed (which will only install on 64-bit Windows 8 Pro). I can write the app in Win8/2012, but I need to connect to the phone to deploy the app to the phone!
 

Daniel Ratcliffe

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The Mac version of the Windows Companion app connects to the phone no problem. The reason I want to connect inside the virtual machine running Windows 8 is that is where VS 2012 and the Windows Phone 8 SDK in installed (which will only install on 64-bit Windows 8 Pro). I can write the app in Win8/2012, but I need to connect to the phone to deploy the app to the phone!

I'm thinking you might need to invest in another computer which runs Windows 8 then as I honestly don't know how to get the VM working :(
 

Nick Talbot

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FIXED! Windows 8 Phone not recognised in Windows 8 virtual machine

I found the solutions to my problem, which is now fixed! My Virtual Box instance of Windows 8 can now see my Windows 8 Phone when plugged into the Mac and USB forwarded.

They key was to simply turn on 'USB 2.0' support in the Ports setting section of the Virtual machine configuration. It would appear the WinPhone is a USB 2.0 device, and doesn't work properly without this being turned on.

There is a caveat to this - USB 2.0 support is not enabled in Virtual Box by default, and when you attempt to switch it on, you are informed that you must first download and install the 'Virtual Box Extension Pack' first before is will work. I duly downloaded and installed the extension pack, turned on USB 2.0 support, and now everything works!

I can sync the WIndows 8 Phone inside the Windows 8 virtual machine, and more importantly I can deploy Windows 8 apps built in Visual Studio 2012 to the physical phone as well.

Hope this helps!
 

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