Further experiments with XP/Vbox/8.1

[Bill Troop billtroop@xxxxxxxx]

I still have my problem that my primary set up, which otherwise seems
to work stably and fluidly, will not allow XyWrite to display a
directory on the host drive, though it will allow me to CALL files
from that drive provided I know their names.
So I thought I would install a fresh VM, installing XP from scratch
rather than using a pre-canned VM image. My problem now is that XP
will not allow me to map the host drive. Normally I would ask it to connect to

\\vboxsvr\[share name specified in Vbox settings]
but this newly installed, plain vanilla instance of XP simply won't
'find' the VBOX host network.

What am I doing wrong?
I must say it is all a great deal more trouble than running XP mode
on Win 7-64. That's a cinch by comparison.
But since many of us will soon be compelled to use Win 8.1 (or,
hopefully, some much-improved successor) I do believe these problems
have to be solved.