I recently got sick of trying to get the lastest version of VMWare server to play nice. I need to run an Ubuntu Linux server on my Windows XP machine for testing various pieces of software.

After a bit of research i downloaded Suns VirtualBox, which seemed to have all the features i was looking for without all the fluff i didn’t need!

Download, installation and configuration was a breeze. I downloaded the latest Ubuntu iso, mounted and installed. Bingo.

However, i need to SSH to this machine from my desktop and i also need to access pages from the apache web server on the Ubuntu installation

By default the networking for the virtual machine is set to PCnet-FAST III(NAT) and the guest machine will reside on a different network.

Looking through the Virtual Box documentation i found what was needed to forward ports on my host (Windows XP) to the guest (Ubuntu) so that i could ssh and access http on the virtual box.

I hope this saves someone else a few minutes:

To enable port forwarding from the host to the guest OS, the guest must be switched off..

using the command prompt, navigate to where the VBoxManage executable is located, on my system this is:

cd “Program Files\Sun\xVM VirtualBox”

Then 3 commands need to be run for each mapping you wish to create.. with the following syntax (replace tokens in []):

• VBoxManage setextradata “[name of your virtual machine]” “VBoxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/[friendly name for rule]/Protocol” [protocol]
• VBoxManage setextradata “[name of your virtual machine]” “VBoxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/[friendly name for rule]/GuestPort” [guest port]
• VBoxManage setextradata “[name of your virtual machine]” “VBoxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/[friendly name for rule]/HostPort” [host port]

So to enable forwarding of port 2222 on my local machine to port 22 on the Ubuntu virtual machine i issued the following commands:

• VBoxManage setextradata “Ubuntu Testing VPS” “VBoxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/guestssh/Protocol” TCP
• VBoxManage setextradata “Ubuntu Testing VPS” “VBoxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/guestssh/GuestPort” 22
• VBoxManage setextradata “Ubuntu Testing VPS” “VBoxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/guestssh/HostPort” 2222

And to enable forwarding of port 8888 on my local machine to port 80 on the Ubuntu virtual machine i issued the following commands:

• VBoxManage setextradata “Ubuntu Testing VPS” “VBoxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/guestmysql/Protocol” TCP
• VBoxManage setextradata “Ubuntu Testing VPS” “VBoxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/guestmysql/GuestPort” 3306
• VBoxManage setextradata “Ubuntu Testing VPS” “VBoxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/guestmysql/HostPort” 3333

i can now access the ubuntu ssh server via ssh -p 2222 user@127.0.0.1

and i can now access the apache server on the ubuntu virtual server via: http://localhost:8888/

Windows XP can load programs it thinks you need before you actually load them yourself! This is done by a process called pre-fetching. This process can consume memory and slow your XP experience.

Windows XP will retain a copy of a portion of a program you have run in the prefetch folder even if you only used it once. If you are unlikely to use this program again, this will adversely affect the performance of your system and is of no benefit to you!

You can see the contents of the prefetch directory by navigating to %systemroot%\prefetch

If you would like to selectively remove programs from the prefetch folder, you can manually delete the items from within the directory listed above. If you would like to disable the service entirely however, please follow the instructions below.

Navigate to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory] using regedit:

1. Find the EnablePrefetcher key
2. Set the EnablePrefetcher key to 0

If you are using your Netbook on the move, it can be very frustrating if you have to wait a significant amount of time for Windows XP to shut down. The following tip will show you how to reduce shut down times, by altering the settings that dictate when windows will shut down tasks that are hung (a common cause of slow shut down speeds). Note: This article assumes that you know how to edit registry settings. You should always backup your registry before making changes.

Navigate to [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\desktop] using regedit:

1. Set AutoEndTasks to 1
2. Set WaitToKillAppTimeout to 4000

References to the above settings can be found at the following link:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windows2000serv/reskit/regentry/34637.mspx?mfr=true ]]> http://www.netbookexpert.co.uk/index.php/2009/08/06/netbook-windows-xp-performance-tuning-speed-up-shut-down/feed/ 0 http://www.netbookexpert.co.uk/index.php/2009/08/06/netbook-windows-xp-performance-tuning-adjusting-xp-for-best-performance/ http://www.netbookexpert.co.uk/index.php/2009/08/06/netbook-windows-xp-performance-tuning-adjusting-xp-for-best-performance/#comments Thu, 06 Aug 2009 09:23:24 +0000 BenWilder http://www.netbookexpertwp.co.uk/?p=47

Windows XP can be set easily for best performance or for best appearance. Setting Windows XP for best performance will disable a number of graphical user interface features, improving the speed and responsiveness of Windows XP noticeably.

To set Windows XP for best performance perform the following:

1. Right click My Computer
2. Click Properties
3. Click the Advanced Tab
4. Click Settings under Performance
5. Click Adjust for best performance – or select your own from Custom if you are feeling adventurous!
6. Click OK
7. Click OK

Screen real estate is at a premium on most netbooks and large icons in the start menu can take a lot of room and seem out of proportion for the screen size offered. A simple change of settings in Windows XP can be used to show small icons in the start menu, giving you a lot more room.

To set Windows XP to use small start menu icons, perform the following:

1. Click Start
2. Click Settings
3. Click Taskbar and Start Menu
4. Click Start Menu Tab
5. Click Classic Start menu
6. Click Customize
7. Scroll down the Advanced Start menu options and select “Show Small Icons in Start menu”
8. Click Ok
9. Click OK