On Thu, 2009-03-19 at 08:38 +0000, Chris G wrote:
Having said all that I too find that cut and paste between host and guest doesn't always work. I *have* found though that it depends how you copy text into the clipboard in the Linux host. If I double click to select text it doesn't work whereas if I use CTRL/C (in Firefox in particular) to copy text in the Linux host then it *does* work and can be pasted in the Windows guest.
On the other hand, for me, copy text in the XP guest and pasting in the Linux host seems to always work OK on my system.
That because X (Linux etc) has two mechanisms for copying from one application to another only one of which is a clipboard.
When you select something (usually text) in one application and then click to insert it into a different application this is using the selection mechanism, not a clipboard. Windows does not support copying between applications this way (though PuTTY simulates this by auto-copying to the clipboard anything you select).
When you specically copy the selection to the clipboard with the menu or Ctrl-C it does use the clipboard and, in the case of the VM, means it becomes available on the clipboard in the guest.
HTH, Steve.