Hardware Using Virtualbox to manage legacy gba flashcarts

[how_do_i_do_that]

The majority of laptops DO NOT support hardware virtualization. It is normally disabled by the manufacture and the option is removed from the BIOS or UEFI. It is recommended you use a desktop. This doesn't stop you from using xp mode, just any specific hardware required features are denied.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/install-and-use-windows-xp-mode-in-windows-7

Links to download and instructions are towards the bottom.

Be aware you need windows 7 professional or higher to run, windows 7 home edition has a built in "you can't use this feature" and will refuse to run xp mode.

----

i know this is an old post but maybe someone is still here that can help me out i did the virtual box running everything working right but im using ezf advance 256m and i got the drivers installed but now when i try and run the ezfa_client it can't find the XceedZip.dll but its in the same path as the EZFA_Clint.exe

If you get an error running the EZFA_Client.exe saying it can't find the XceedZip.dll, it means you are running the program from a zip folder. You can fix your problem by using a zip manager like 7zip and extracting the contents to a folder before you proceed.

 

[duwen]

I recently had to use a similar method to run the clients for my couple of old EFA linker carts.
I still run WinXp sp3 on a dual boot desktop, but found that the clients kept crashing when they scanned the connected flashcart. My solution was to install WinXp sp2 on Virtualbox - everything worked great then.
Thought I'd mention this as I couldn't spot a mention of which service pack version of XP to use in your guide, and it may be a solution to any issues others may face trying to accomplish the same thing.

 

[how_do_i_do_that]

SP3 changed the way how alot of drivers worked. It is recommended that you use SP2 or SP1 or no service pack at all when using it for running old software. If you got to bring up security issues or whatever, one has to wonder why are you trying to surf on the internet in a VM.

 

[spacorn]

Might as well comment that M3 Game Manager doesn't work natively on Windows 10, but if you use compatibility modes (either Windows XP or Windows 7) it launches, and the main patching functionality works. Some options won't work, like the save manager and cheat engine, but you don't need those (the cheat engine is broken anyway and there's better tool to manage M3's save format)

 

[how_do_i_do_that]

M3 Game Manager is not relevant to this thread because it is an app that processes files to CF/SD/microSD and doesn't require drivers, while this thread is to deal with flashcarts that REQUIRE drivers that can only run on XP or lower.

 

[xler8]

FYI - here is the archive.org cache of this thread. It has the images cached for anyone looking for them. Thanks for the original post, how_do_i_do_that.

http://web.archive.org/web/20180901...albox-to-manage-legacy-gba-flashcarts.275407/

 

[Yukichigai]

Not to unduly necro this thread, but I'm just this moment loading more stuff onto one of these old flashcards (the exact elink cart in the photo, actually) and using an almost identical method. I'm using VMWare Workstation 17 rather than VirtualBox, but the basic idea is the same. In my case I didn't have to deal with any of the driver issues on my main OS (Windows 10): when you plug in a USB device with a VMWare instance running it will ask you if you want to connect the device to your host machine or a specific VM. Basically I start up my XP VM, start the flash cart software, plug in the flash cart, power on the GBA, and finally tell VMWare to connect the new device to the XP VM. From there I can transfer files easily... well, as easily as these old flash carts allow anyway.

One or two pieces of advice I have for anyone trying to do this in 2024 or beyond. First, don't even give the VM a network card. XP doesn't need network access to run or use any of these utilities, plus it's full of exploitable security holes. It's not going to be a disaster or anything, but it'd still be annoying if your VM got infected with a virus after you got it set up.

So how do you transfer files? That brings to my second piece of advice: figure out how to set up shared folders between your VM and your actual machine. In my case I shared (read only) my entire secondary drive, which is where all my ROMs are stored and where my default download directory is. Instead of having to use IE 6 to download the flash cart software, I just downloaded it all on my main machine and was able to access it on the VM via the shared folder (which shows up as a networked drive).