Using F8 on Sun VirtualBox 3.1.2 when installing Windows XP

• February 7, 2010
• James Skemp
• software

For various reasons, I had need to install Windows XP on a new virtual machine earlier today (with Windows 7 64-bit as the host).

For whatever reason, when getting to the point of accepting the licensing terms, before installation, I was unable to use the F8 key. After searching about, I found a number of Mac and Ubuntu users with the same issue, but no Windows users. The left control, shift, alt, and even right control (which I knew wasn't going to work, but an Ubuntu user swore by it and I was out of options) buttons did nothing to help.

However, the often-used (ah, sarcasm) "F Lock" key was what finally did it.

But what the heck if the F Lock key in the first place? Turns out it's a Microsoft keyboard key, and which seems utterly useless.

Did the presence of this key cause the issue? Or is this a common issue that Windows users don't report? Or were the Mac/Linux questions so plentiful that they bumped the Windows users?

• virtualbox
• microsoft