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My host is 64 bit Windows 7 bit where my VirtualBox is running 32 bit Windows 7. I have installed guest services and I have enabled drag and drop in Settings >> General >> Advance to bidirectional.

I can copy/paste text file between host and virtual box and copy/paste or drag/drop doesn't work.

I have tried one of the solution here by Sam there (Kill VBoxTray.exe) but it didn't work. I see other threads like this but there are no answer.

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5
  • Which version of VirtualBox are you using? Can you drag and drop from the guest VM to the host?
    – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007
    Commented Oct 5, 2016 at 15:32
  • Also from VBox's documentation (latest version): "Limitations: On Windows hosts, dragging and dropping content from UAC-elevated (User Account Control) programs to non-UAC-elevated programs and vice versa is now allowed. So when starting VirtualBox with Administrator privileges then drag and drop will not work with the Windows Explorer which runs with regular user privileges by default."
    – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007
    Commented Oct 5, 2016 at 15:40
  • @Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 I am using the latest 5.1.6 The drag and drop doesn't work in either direction.
    – zar
    Commented Oct 5, 2016 at 17:13
  • To install guest services, when your virtual OS is running from Virtual box menu select Devices -> Insert Guest Additions CD image. Guest editions is required to have drag & drop and shared clipboard
    – mohas
    Commented Nov 17, 2017 at 21:03
  • In my case, I had to reinstall guest services and restart the virtual system after updating virtualbox on the host, so my versions matched again.
    – Brownbat
    Commented Sep 26, 2020 at 21:40

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
6

Open windows explorer as administrator and drag from there:

  • open Windows directory
  • Locate explorer.exe
  • Right click, run as administrator

Tested on 5.1.8, host and guest both windows 7 x64, using guest additions.

Note: You might need to shutdown and start again the guest os, at least for me the guest bugs badly when I try to drag a file from a non UAC explorer window.

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5
  • Awesome, that worked! I also had to reboot my VM to make it work. Before reboot though, copy/paste messed the VM, the explorer on it will not work properly after copy/paste..double click edited folder instead of opening. Reboot fixed those issues.
    – zar
    Commented Nov 14, 2016 at 21:08
  • 1
    And FYI, explorer.exe is typically in C:\Windows
    – zar
    Commented Nov 14, 2016 at 21:22
  • 3
    It did not work for me. The guest is always stuck with "Dropping data... 0%"
    – Mert Mertce
    Commented Jul 18, 2018 at 10:21
  • 1
    This does not work, at least not anymore.
    – Everyone
    Commented Nov 29, 2019 at 2:34
  • For me drag & drop from the Desktop or from an elevated Explorer didn't worked. I used another file commander (Total Commander) elevated and drag & drop worked.
    – riQQ
    Commented Apr 18, 2020 at 19:02

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