Running a Windows program inside a program that can save and resume?

[Ian]

I have a Windows program that pre-generates scenarios for a board game, revealing sections a bit at a time.

The issue I have is that one scenario can take a along time to complete, and there is no way to save your progress and resume another time.

So I wondered if there was a program which the above program could run inside of, and then the containing program could save the state, exit, and reload another time so that I could continue later?

[veeg]

Hello

Hopefully some of our members will chime in soon.

@Evan Omo @Twitch6000 @georgeks @phillpower2

[Ian]

Thanks, I hope so.

Ideally I’d be looking for something open-source (or if paid then a reasonable price), and something that’s easy to use.

Also the program uses very little memory or processing power, so I shouldn’t need anything hugely powerful.

[TwitchisMental]

Honestly the only thing that comes to mind would be running the program within a virtual operating system via something like virtual box.

For example, lets say in Virtual Box you have a Windows 7 virtual machine setup. You can then run your special program within it. When you need to “pause” it, you can do so via the “save the machine state” option within virtual box.

Virtual Box is free software under the GPLv2.

[Ian]

Thanks very much, I will give Virtual Box a try.

[Ian]

I’ve got VB installed, and created a VM with Windows 7 installed. I’m trying to copy the folder containing my program from my host to my guest, but I can’t find a way to do it. I’ve selected the folder to be a shared folder, and I’ve activated “Drag and Drop” from both guest to host and host to guest, but I can’t find a way to copy the folder to the VM. I also tried copying the folder to a USB stick in the hope that the VM would also recognize the USB stick, but it didn’t.

Does anyone here know about VB? Should I start a separate thread? Or maybe post on the VB forums?

[Ian]

I’ve fixed the problem of file sharing. I had to install Guest Additions, and now I can copy files to the VM.

However, the program still won’t work because it says :

[ATTACH]3583[/ATTACH]

I went into display settings for the VM, adding video card memory, then enabling 2D and 3D support:

[ATTACH]3584[/ATTACH]

But none of this helps, the program still won’t run. I searched online for a solution and found this:

Use REGEDIT and change the “SoftwareOnly” key from “1” to “0” in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\ Direct3D\Drivers
and then reboot the system and it should work.

But this didn’t help (there is no “SoftwareOnly” key). Does anyone have any suggestion for how I could avoid this error message?

[Ian]

I think I may just keep things simple and use my laptop, and then I can just put it in standby plugged into the wall for however many days, and then it’ll be in the same state when I wake it up

[TwitchisMental]

I’ve fixed the problem of file sharing. I had to install Guest Additions, and now I can copy files to the VM.

However, the program still won’t work because it says :

[ATTACH]3583[/ATTACH]

I went into display settings for the VM, adding video card memory, then enabling 2D and 3D support:

[ATTACH]3584[/ATTACH]

But none of this helps, the program still won’t run. I searched online for a solution and found this:

Use REGEDIT and change the “SoftwareOnly” key from “1” to “0” in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\ Direct3D\Drivers
and then reboot the system and it should work.

But this didn’t help (there is no “SoftwareOnly” key). Does anyone have any suggestion for how I could avoid this error message?

Sorry for the late reply. You mentioned that you installed Guest additions before enabling 3d and such.

If this is the case go ahead and uninstall the guest additions and turn off the 3d settings. Afterwards restart the program.

From there enable 3d and then install guest additions. This should allow you to install anything extra like Direct X and allow 3d apps to properly run.

If this does not work though, it maybe the program requiring more then a virtual machine can provide.

[Ian]

If I go to the Devices menu option when inside the VM there is no option to uninstall the Guest Additions, only an option to “Insert Guest Additions CD Image”. So I wonder if it’s actually possible to uninstall Guest Additions, or if I would have to delete the VM and create it again?

[TwitchisMental]

If I go to the Devices menu option when inside the VM there is no option to uninstall the Guest Additions, only an option to “Insert Guest Additions CD Image”. So I wonder if it’s actually possible to uninstall Guest Additions, or if I would have to delete the VM and create it again?

That would be normal. I believe you would need to start a fresh VM. I haven’t used virtual box in a bit myself.

If the problem does continue from there, that means the program is requiring more than the virtual graphics card can handle.

In which case we are back at square one unfortunately.

[Ian]

Ok, I’ll probably try using my laptop for now, but I’ll try a fresh install of VM as another option if I decide to use the PC instead.

Thanks for your help, happy to close the thread