Wondering if this is a shortcoming on Microsoft's part, or something in the VirtualBox software.

Received a notice that there was an update to the VirtualBox software, so I figured I'd install it. At the same time, I figured I might as well add it to the other machine I've recently re-purposed at home. The upgrade went without a hitch, and the previous VM already configured still worked (boot and shutdown, anyway).

The new install, however, left me scratching my head a little bit. Of course, the new install of the VirtualBox software went fine, even installing a few dependencies it required. Once installed, I figured I'd need something to install on it. I don't really have a purpose to have a VM on this machine yet, so I thought perhaps I should put Microsoft Windows 7 on there, and at least then I could use Netflix's Watch Instantly feature, to catch some video in the corner while I work. For giggles, I also figured I'd give Win7 64-bit a whirl.

The trouble with 64-bit OSs so far, Mac OSX as a glaring exception, is that some software doesn't work so swell on it. In my dorking around with Ubuntu 64-bit, I've been pretty lucky in that the few 32-bit binary-only programs I use (cough, Savage, cough) work well with the 32-bit libraries that the 64-bit OS support. The only program I've wanted to use, available in 32-bit only, that I can't use is Boxee, and the only reason I wanted to use Boxee is because it theoretically allows access to Netflix's Watch Instantly queue.

This in mind, I thought I'd give Win7's 64-bit a try, to see if Microsoft has licked the problem as well as Apple has. They haven't.

The install went without a hitch. The Windows updater updated. The VirtualBox guest tools installed. Even AVG installed and ran. I was even able to visit Netflix and start a film, but only then noticed I'd been not noticing there was no audio. Sure enough, bright as day is a great big X on the volume control. No device loaded.

A quick scan on the Google-sphere shows that I'm not the only one, and that some get it to work and some don't. No one, however, states that they're successful in 32-bit but not 64-bit. On the other machine, the one that notified me of the update, I'm running 32-bit Win7, and it does have audio (I've heard it). I fired it up again, was happily greeted with the boot and login noises, and I shut 'er down.

I decide to run through the set-up one more time (pracitice makes perfect, right?) and put the 32-bit on the machine. Really, the only thing 64-bit gives me today is incompatibilty headaches and access to RAM over four gigabytes, and I'm only giving the VM two gigabytes, so that's not even an issue. (The host, for the curious, is running on an 8GB machine, so it does have 64-bit Ubuntu, 'though there's a package that does some paging allowing the 32-bit access to higher than 4GB addressess...never tried it...)

A bit of time later, and the 32-bit finishes its install. It also doesn't have audio, and the little red X is on the volume control icon, but I notice that there's an update installing in the first moments of the boot. I check, and it's installing the updated AC97 audio driver. No doubt this was done on the other install, but perhaps I'd not paid attention.

A moment later the update finishes, the X disappears, and by adjusting the volume, I get a pleasant ding.

It appears, then, that the 64-bit version of Windows 7 (release candidate, to be fair) doesn't have the right stuff to see the generic AC97 audio driver that the Sun VirtualBox presents. I don't imagine there's a lot of difference in their handling, despite one VM being built as Win7 64-bit and the other as Win7 32-bit (in VMWare, you've got to pick Windows XP...but audio works there, too, for the 32-bit...never tried the 64-bit).

Now I'm trying to get the rest of the system configured so I can finally stream video in the corner while I'm working.