POC of take screenshot from XP virtual machine of windows 7 main machine

Question

I searching any ideas of take screenshot of main machine on windows 7 from virtual machine on windows XP, have any ideas or proof on concept to can do this?

Maybe from integration drivers or something?

I don't require any code snipets, must have only POC of can't do this.

EDIT: Can be process integration idea? (dump any process memory on main machine from virtualized)

Answer 1

I have some trouble with your English, but I think you're asking if it's possible for an application running in a "Guest" operating system (the OS running within a hypervisor) to take a screenshot of the screen of the "Host" operating system (the OS hosting the hypervisor).

Assuming you haven't enabled any functionality in the hypervisor to allow a guest to access the memory of the host (which sounds like a really bad idea for a "feature"), any method by which a guest can access the host, short of using a network protocol (like Chopper3 suggests) is a bug in the hypervisor.

The hypervisor should present a virtual machine to the guest that complete isolates the guest from the host. Any methods to access the host OS from the guest should, ultimately, be the same as if the guest was a separate physical machine from the host.

There are certainly people who would be interested in knowing how to "break out" of a hypervisor and access the host. I'm sure there are bugs in currently shipping hypervisors or hardware that would allow such a thing, since no non-trivial computer program can really be bug free. If you found a way to "break out" of any mainstream hypervisor the "manufacturer" would certainly be interested in knowing how you did it. To my knowledge, no such bugs are common "public knowledge". (Such bugs would represent a major security vulnerability...)

Answer 2

Wow, I think I know what you're trying to ask, maybe anyway - do you mean "can I get a VM to take a screen grab of it's host OS's display?"?

If that's what you meant well first of all you don't mention a particular hypervisor you're interested in using, can you let us know which please, but the answer will almost certainly be no. That kind of functionality just doesn't exist, it's such an odd thing to do. That said you might be able to write a script from within the VM to RDP to the host and screen grab from there but that's got nothing to do with the actual virtualization.

Answer 3

If this is a windows environment you might be able to use WMI to call a script on the host system to send a prtscrn key to the console. You would then have to paste it into paint (again via script). I haven't tried it but it sounds reasonable to me and I've certainly automated applications via sendkeys.