VirtualBox virtual adapters interfere with network discovery

[Ouijm Guipps]

ISSUE
It appears that having the VirtualBox virtual adapters enabled prevents computers on the same network from seeing each other. I am guessing that steam only searches one (the virtual wrong one) of the adapters and not the actual adapter that connects your computer to the internet.

OS
Windows 8.1, 7

STEPS TO REPRODUCE

1. Install VirtualBox with default settings on the host machine and client machine.
   
2. launch steam on both machines.
   
3. They should fail to detect one another and should not appear in the streaming tab in steam settings
   
4. To fix go to network connections and disable the virtualbox adapter on both machines.
   
5. Reboot and streaming will now function as intended

Steam should be able to figure out which adapter is the correct one.

[Akai]

Thank you I was having this issue and could not figure out why. I had installed Genymotion android emulators and they use VirtualBox. Disabling the adapter made my other PC visible instantly for streaming I didn't even need to reboot.

[davew_uk]

I have to say, I never had this problem on my old host box that had Genymotion (and vmware) installed. However streams would fail to start two, three times at least before finally getting going.

One thing you could try is hiding rather than disabling the virtual adapters:

http://www.brokenwire.net/bw/Various/120/fix-virtualbox-causes-unidentified-network-on-vista-and-windows-7

I always used to do this as it'd keep setting my network to public and messing up the firewall. HTH.