Google Earth Plug-In doesn't work when using Virtual Machine?

[ulab2.0]

Hi,

There seems to be a problem with the Google Earth Plug-In when you use
a Virtual Machine (in this case Windows XP) and try to access a
website that uses the Google Earth Plug-In. The problem is that the
Google Earth Plug-In doesn't work at all, it will keep showing the
loading preloader icon and also shows a pop-up with "Google Earth Plug-
In has encountered a problem and needs to close. ...."

This means that I can't do any development with the plug-in when using
a virtual machine image or using remote desktop, nor can I show my
application(s) to customers or other people for a presentation or
something similar when using these. This last issue happened to me
twice already and the first one is now causing me significant
"problems" (time / inconvenience) with my development environment
because of conflicting issues with another more complicated
development environment, which I now will have to move to development
on a virtual machine instead of the other way around.

Because of this last issue I'm making this thread here, since I
couldn't find similar topics nor find out more info about this.

Is this a known-issue and if it is, can anyone tell me the status of
it (will it be fixed in a timely manner) ? It is not the sort of
problem where there isn't some way you can work around it but still it
would be very nice if the plug-in would "just work" when using a
virtual machine. It would also be nice for the actual endusers if they
are using a VM because now they can't use any of them.

Kind regards and thanks in advance,

[bryce]

Hello,

You might want to describe your environment more so people get a
better idea what's your problem is.

I use a virtual Windows XP with VMWare Fusion on Mac OS X. Google
Earth Plugin "just works" for me. So I don't think this is a known
issue.

I have experience struggling with a similar problem on "native" Mac OS
X. The problem seemed to be caused by misconfiguration of Adobe Flash
(version conflict or whatever). When I logged in with a new user
account, the problem wasn't there. So it was an account-specific
issue. What I did was to clean all caches, reset the application
configurations etc. Then finally I managed to get the Plugin work. It
was a longer story than I wrote here, though.

I suggest you try it with various environments such as a new user
account, different browsers (IE, Firefox, Safari). My problem occurred
with Firefox only.

Hope this gives you a hint.

Thanks,

Ei

[Markw65]

I have the same issue, using Microsoft VirtualPC.

I believe the problem is that DirectX is "installed" but doesnt really
work. I believe that if directX wasnt there, the plugin should fall
back to OpenGL mode. I havent yet gone back to see...

Mark

[ulab2.0]

Hi thanks for the reactions.

My environment information:

I use Windows XP Professional, Service Pack 3.

I have used Virtual PC from Microsoft and VMWare (this one could have
been an older version), all with a Windows XP Professional image (I
think they were all SP 2 though).

In both of these Google Earth didn't work, in either Internet Explorer
or Firefox. With Virtual PC I tried it under my account (have
administrator rights) or as "the" Administrator user (on which I never
previously used GE), didn't matter.

I have tried to run Google Earth with at least 4 computers. It also
didn't work with Remote Desktop from another Windows XP Pro computer.

On this computer I have DirectX version 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904), also
with my Virtual Image. Searching through Google showed me Google Earth
does indeed require DirectX to run (which would make sense), and it
appears that DirectX doesn't work on virtual machines like Virtual PC.
If that's the case then there's nothing I can do but wait for a VM
version that does support DirectX.

What's interesting is, that on my personal computer (an iMac with Mac
OS X), I use Parallels with also a Windows XP image (don't know if
it's a Pro edition or which SP). And there Google Earth doesn't
exactly work properly to say the least, but at least it's running
there. The actual contents of Google Earth is pushed into a small
square and the colors are a bit off, but you can navigate through it
(not that it really matters since the square is to small to do most
things).

So maybe it would work if I had a) an iMac at work (ha!) and b) a
better VM then Parallels. But yeah, that's very unlikely that's going
to happen so unfortunately it wouldn't solve my problem.

Anyone has more suggestions I could try?

Thanks

[ulab2.0]

Btw, I just checked by searching a bit and VMWare Fusion that you're
using does indeed support DirectX 9, and therefore Google Earth works
with that.

[renzo]

If you do a remote Desktop to a windows cp pc and try to view a site
with GE Plugin in a browser local to the remote pc it does not work
either. Google Plugin Fails to Load. If you view the site directly on
the pc eveything works fine. Not a Biggie but a pain.
If you use WebEx or another service like that it will not work if
doing it directly either.

[jganong]

i have the same problem, but i found that i am able to remotely view
a
googleearth plugin running on a windows machine i use jrdesktop
(http://jrdesktop.sourceforge.net/)

there is one thing that i have found to be annoying. we use zonealarm
on our windows machines here, and when
zonealam pops up on the host pc to ask if you want to allow something,
your mouse clicks
from the client are lost. so i just disable zonealarm when running
remotely.

> > > betterVMthen Parallels. But yeah, that's very unlikely that's going

> > > > > are using aVMbecause now they can't use any of them.