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I bought a $20 Dynex microphone for two reasons:

1) To practice my pronunciation in Rosetta Stone because I'm learning Japanese
2) I use GNS3 and Oracle Virtualbox to run tons of router, switch, and VM simulations.

The microphone works fantastic in Win7 right out of the box. No issues there. For the life of me, I can't get it recognized in an XP Pro Virtualbox VM, since I'm using it with Cisco IP communicator (long story short, I turned a 3745 router into a CME. )

I searched the dynex website, and there are NO drivers available. Just manuals. Is this something you folks could help with, or should I pester Oracle, since the issue seems to be with the VM not passing the USB device thru?

None of those are a good reason to pipe a microphone into a virtual machine, especially since your host is Windows anyway and so is Rosetta Stone... and why in the world would GNS3 want a mike? Why make things harder for yourself to no purpose?

bthylafh wrote:

None of those are a good reason to pipe a microphone into a virtual machine, especially since your host is Windows anyway and so is Rosetta Stone... and why in the world would GNS3 want a mike? Why make things harder for yourself to no purpose?

You mean by now you still don't know who the OP is?

bthylafh wrote:

None of those are a good reason to pipe a microphone into a virtual machine, especially since your host is Windows anyway and so is Rosetta Stone... and why in the world would GNS3 want a mike? Why make things harder for yourself to no purpose?

Dude/Dudette, I do crazy things in GNS3 to practice for CCNP and CISSP certifications. On the XP Pro VM, I have Cisco's IP Communicator installed, since I can turn a C3745 into a call manager. IP communicator REQUIRES a microphone, so I can only test it to a point. It connects to the registrar just fine, and grabs the right phone image, but I need the mic to test full functionality.

The mic works just fine in Win7 and Rosetta Stone, but I like to try things that normal people wouldn't bother with. If you wanted to use GNS3 to create a giant topology to simulate a multinational company would you use Netware 5.1 running IPX/SPX, NDS, etc? Most people wouldn't, but I'm not a normal person.

Heck, I've gotten Haiku, Linux Mint 17, XP PRo, NT4 sp6a running nwadmin and Xenworks, Win2K8R2 running Radius and PRTG, and more routers and switches (simulated AND physical) than you can shake a stick at running simultaneously and working as intended. I'm weird that way. Just bear with me. There's a madness to my method.

You've left out a lot of info that could help us figure out where the problem might lie.

Does it show up in VirtualBox's USB Devices menu, and did you *try* to pass it through? Did you try to set up a USB device filter in VirtualBox (if a device has a tendency to connect/disconnect unexpectedly this will ensure that it gets passed through automatically after the re-connect)? Is the mic even compatible with XP in the first place (have you tried it on a native XP system)? Do you see any unrecognized devices in the Device Manager of the VM?

just brew it! wrote:

You've left out a lot of info that could help us figure out where the problem might lie.

Does it show up in VirtualBox's USB Devices menu, and did you *try* to pass it through? Did you try to set up a USB device filter in VirtualBox (if a device has a tendency to connect/disconnect unexpectedly this will ensure that it gets passed through automatically after the re-connect)? Is the mic even compatible with XP in the first place (have you tried it on a native XP system)? Do you see any unrecognized devices in the Device Manager of the VM?

Gimme a few minutes to help somebody get a c2600 IOS image working in GNS3, and ask a question on the Cooler Master board, and I'll get right back to answer your questions, and take some screen caps. BRB.

I'm back. It took longer than I thought, since I had to actually prove to the kid with screenshots that I can run the c2600-adventerprisek9-mz.123-14.T2 IOS image in GNS3 (and have been for months), without problems.

I also took the time to download the virtualbox extension pack from Oracle, since VB manager pitched a fit when I tried enabling USB2 EHCI.

Anyway, here are the screencaps I took. Pretty much nothing I tried worked, and VB kept throwing errors (oddly, it LOVED my adapter for my wireless keyboard, and installed that, no problem.) . Also, I didn;t screencap it, but virtualbox USB driver *was* installed. Anyway, without further ado, here's what I tried:

Here is where I enabled USB2 EHCI in VB Manager for the XP VM, and added the two "unknown devices". This was after I installed the extension pack. Before, it would show an error, and recommend downloading the pack.

This is what it shows in the XP VM under USB Devices. The Logitech controller is for my wireless keyboard, the Seagate is an external HDD, and the 360 wireless controller is self-explanitory. I have no idea what the two Unknown devices are, and was hoping one was the microphone.

Both devices threw similar errors, and the only audio input device that showed up was an Intel integrated.

This shows that I have USB2 EHCI turned on in both the VB Manager, and the XP VM, and have both those unknowns added to the list.

I'm running VBox version 4.3.12, so I've download 4.3.14, and I'll try it when I have some time tomorrow.

Otherwise, I'm seriously stumped. What am I missing here? There's gotta be *some* way to make this work. I hope you kind folks can point out what I'm doing wrong. I've posted at VBox community, but I have no Idea how long they take to respond, since I'm new there. I can't get even post screencaps there until I've been signed up for a day. so Frustrating.

I have seen VirtualBox have problems like this with devices which are attached to USB3 ports on the host. If you're doing this, try a USB2 host port instead.

You didn't mention whether you've tried the mic on a native XP system. If the device isn't compatible with XP's out-of-box drivers, and the manufacturer hasn't provided XP drivers, you may be SOL.

just brew it! wrote:

I have seen VirtualBox have problems like this with devices which are attached to USB3 ports on the host. If you're doing this, try a USB2 host port instead.

You didn't mention whether you've tried the mic on a native XP system. If the device isn't compatible with XP's out-of-box drivers, and the manufacturer hasn't provided XP drivers, you may be SOL.

SUCCESS!!!






You totally nailed it. Once I plugged it into a free USB2 port in the back, instead of the free USB3s up front, it immediately recognized the mic, installed it, and works. I verified it with the system audio APP, and the IP communicator calibration tool.

Many many thanks!

You can also thank my day job. First time I encountered this issue was with a VM being used for embedded microcontroller development. The USB-based microcontroller programming dongle would only work if attached to a USB2 port!

Sorry I'm late getting here. I actually ran into that same problem, different cause. Since all the USB ports on my M4800 are USB3, I used an old 3" USB extension to make one into a USB2 port. That seemed to work, though it shouldn't have. I think VMware supporting USB3 in VMs was part of it.