VirtualBox Windows 7 Host, XP Guest cannot play audio

"I am running VirtualBox (3.1.2 when posted) on a Windows 7 Host, and my Windows XP Guest plays audio just fine. Here are my settings, I hope they help you:

Audio

Enable Audio: checked
Host Audio Driver: Windows DirectSound
Audio Controller: ICH AC97

To me it sounds like there is some sort of conflict with your host audio driver. Does this happen if you install a fresh new clean copy of Windows XP as a guest?

Any chance your could try to either upgrade your existing driver, or completely uninstall your audio device and reinstall it again?

One last thought, on the host, can you try changing the default audio device (Start -> Control Panel -> Sound) and try setting one of the other devices as the default? You may also want to go into the advanced settings for the device and reset the settings back to their defaults (most tabs have a button for that). Last, on the Advanced tab, there are some options for Exclusive mode. Ideally both should be checked, but try disabling them and see what happens."

"I was also getting no sound with an XP guest Virtual box on a Windows 7 64 host but got it to work with the following settings:
Host Driver: Windows DirectSound
Controller: ICH AC97

Here's what I did:

Tried every combination without success.
Logged off the XP guest
Selected Settings (Yellow Cog) in VM VirtualBox Manager
Selected Audio in the left pain of the Settings window
Ticked the Enable Audio check box
Selected Host Audio Driver: Windows DirectSound
Selected Audio Controller: ICH AC97
Clicked the [OK] button
Selected Start (Green arrow) in the VM VirtualBox Manager

Now inside the XP Guest:

Selected [Start] > Settings > Control Panel
Double left clicked on ""Sounds and Audio devices"" in the Control Panel
Unchecked the Mute check box on the Volume tab of the ""Sounds and Audio devices properties"" window.
Click the [OK] button.
Played an .mp3 file and was able to hear the music."

"If I set up the virtual machine this way:

Power up my laptop (ASUS ROG G750JX)
Fire up VirtualBox
Create a Windows XP 32 bit guest (with audio disabled as a precaution)
Fire up the virtual machine
Go through the process of installing windows
Shutdown the virtual machine
Enable audio on the VM
Fire it up one more time (installing additions before or after this step is irrelevant)

When the desktop loads, a new hardware detected notification pops up, the Intel AC97 driver installs, and audio works fine; even if I restart the VM, audio still works.

However, if I shutdown the VM and close the VirtualBox main window, then audio won't work the next time I run VirtualBox.

I can fix this by restarting the laptop (the actual hardware). It seems VirtualBox may be doing something on its way out (perhaps some memory corruption of some sort or something when it shuts down) that prevents the XP guest's audio from working fine next time you try.

I don't know if this will work for others, but it's worked for me."