Virtualbox: 2 versions of Guest Additions installed (Windows 10 guest)

Host: Linux Mint 22.1
Guest: Windows 10

Windows "apps and features" (which lists out all of the installed programs) shows 2 versions of Guest Additions installed.
version 7.0.x
version 7.2.16 (which I just installed)

In the Oracle Virtualbox 7.2 manual that I have, it doesn't tell you to first uninstall the older version.

The shared folder between guest and host is working. Same thing with shared clipboard. However, the window size of the guest is not performing as I would like. When I boot, there is a lot of blank screen space on the right and left. I can press the resize button in the upper right twice to fix the problem. But, I have to do that each time that I boot the VM.

Should I use Windows (built in) uninstaller to remove the older version?

Edit:
I see this line in VBox.log
00:00:04.613489 VMMDev: Guest Additions information report: Version 7.2.16 r174877 '7.2.16'

I see this line in VBox.log.3
00:00:04.038718 VMMDev: Guest Additions information report: Version 7.0.24 r167081 '7.0.24'

The latter was probably from before I installed Virtualbox 7.2.16 (I installed the latest Virtualbox less than 24 hours ago).

So, seems like the VM is running the most recent version of Virtualbox Guest Additions.

I have seen it before. When upgrading a program to a newer version both the old and the new version are seen in Installed Apps. It's not a VirtualBox bug. Same for installing different languages of the same application, for example US English and Greek Microsoft Office. Not sure if you can remove one without affecting the other. Since both versions take small disk space anyway, I would just ignore them and not uninstall the older version just in case the new uses some files from the old.

See this screenshot:



Translation in English:
Fullscreen mode (Host+F)
Internal screen (Host+L)
Scaled screen (Host+C)
Adjust to window size (Host+A)
Auto-adjusted guest screen
Take a screenshot (Host+E)
Capture screen
Selection catalog line (or similar)
Status line
Virtual Screen 1

I tried these, the screen size remains the same, even if you maximize the guest window. The only thing that works is to change zoom from default 100% to something larger to fill the screen. Or change resolution at the guest OS to make it larger. To change zoom is done from Virtual Screen 1 list.

spapakons said:

I have seen it before. When upgrading a program to a newer version both the old and the new version are seen in Installed Apps.

Click to expand...

Thank you. Leaving the 2 installs seems like a reasonable plan. After all, the VM seems to be working.

spapakons said:

Translation in English:
Fullscreen mode (Host+F)
Internal screen (Host+L)
Scaled screen (Host+C)
Adjust to window size (Host+A)
Auto-adjusted guest screen
Take a screenshot (Host+E)
Capture screen
Selection catalog line (or similar)
Status line
Virtual Screen 1

I tried these, the screen size remains the same, even if you maximize the guest window. The only thing that works is to change zoom from default 100% to something larger to fill the screen. Or change resolution at the guest OS to make it larger. To change zoom is done from Virtual Screen 1 list.

Click to expand...

Thank you for your effort and insight. Much appreciated.
Seems like the problem is now fixed. Here is what I did:
1) I went into the VM and changed the resolution to the maximum available resolution (in Windows 10).
2) when booted into the guest -> Virtualbox software menu at the top -> view -> unchecked "auto resize guest display."
Now the guest seems to use all of the screen space that I want it to use.

Sorry for any issues inaccuracies but I have the Greek version of VirtualBox and tried to translate to English. By the way here are three guest OSes that don't run properly in VMware but run OK in VirtualBox:

Open Indiana (formerly Open Solaris)
Windows Mobile 10
Lindows 4.0 (predecessor to Linspire Linux). This one cannot boot to GUI with the default virtual graphics card, change to VGA.

spapakons said:

The only thing that works is to change zoom from default 100% to something larger to fill the screen. Or change resolution at the guest OS to make it larger. To change zoom is done from Virtual Screen 1 list.

Click to expand...

hirre34 said:

Seems like the problem is now fixed. Here is what I did:
1) I went into the VM and changed the resolution to the maximum available resolution (in Windows 10).
2) when booted into the guest -> Virtualbox software menu at the top -> view -> unchecked "auto resize guest display."
Now the guest seems to use all of the screen space that I want it to use.

Click to expand...

When I cold booted the guest VM, the display was back to having a lot of wasted boarder space. (In my last post, I had tested by only rebooting.)

Why don't you install VMWare Player instead? I find it better.


Even the full VMWare Workstation Pro 17 is now free:

spapakons said:

Why don't you install VMWare Player instead? I find it better.

Download VMware Player 17.6.3 - MajorGeeks

VMware Player is an easy-to-use application that will offer users the possibility to run any virtual machine on their computer—used by MajorGeeks to test software safely.

www.majorgeeks.com

Even the full VMWare Workstation Pro 17 is now free:

vmwareworkstationarchive directory listing

Click to expand...

I did try VMWare Workstation Pro several months ago or maybe more than a year ago. I couldn't get it up and running with full functionality. On a different note, my sense is that it's a big project to move from one hypervisor to another when you have multiple VMs to "move over." Specifically, guests that have software licenses attached.

Still, it's a reasonable fallback plan to have in the toolbox.

I know that VMWare can convert a different virtual machine to VMWare but I am not sure how good this works, let alone do it for many virtual machines. You can duplicate one and try converting the copy, not the original, to see how it behaves. I don't think the VMWare Player can do that, you probably need VMWare Workstation Pro.

spapakons said:

I know that VMWare can convert a different virtual machine to VMWare but I am not sure how good this works, let alone do it for many virtual machines. You can duplicate one and try converting the copy, not the original, to see how it behaves.

Click to expand...

Part of the problem is that I am not using my virtual machines much. So it's not like I can just go about my daily business for 2 days as a way to "test" the virtual machine.

The bottom line is that for me, it's a bigger project than it appears.

It would be a reasonably good long term investment, though.

Leave your virtual machines in the original application and convert to VMWare only the one you had an issue. All you need is to convert the virtual hard disk. Create a virtual machine in VMWare with similar specs and use the converted virtual disk.

The only system I've found that is "Reasonably OS agnostic" as to which Virtual Machine platform they run on (V2V Virtual to Virtual or V2P Virtual to Physical) is to start with a VM running under KVM/QEMU on Linux is a bit of a mess but involved

1) add TWO USB devices drives both formatted with NTFS

2) boot the existing W11 Guest

3) Use Macrium to Image the W11 guest - if you don't have Macrium the old Free version V8 still works - publicly available from the Internet still. Image is on the NTFS formatted drive.

4) for the 2nd drive ensure it's formatted GPT (use diskpart in the Guest W11 system)

5) now with Macrium restore the image to the 2nd USB drive - you can resize partitions provided the target partitions have enough free space using the Macrium application.

6) now PHYSICALLY boot the stand alone Macrium recovery ISO also with the USB drive containing the restored image. You might need to create a bootable device for the Macrium recovery

7) After restore use the command mode in the Macrium recovery system to re-install the boot loader on the restored W11 system -- plenty of commands on how to do that using built in windows command bcdboot.

8) Now reboot the USB drive -- this will be a "Windows2Go" type of install but if you set the "portable OS flag to "0" then you can copy it to any drive without Windows thinking it's an external drive ".

9) Finally use this Windows disk to create a VM . Just re-clone the image to your new VM. In this case Cloning works rather than imaging again. !!

It looks more complicated than it is but it's fine really, plus you've got a nice Windows2Go system as well. !!!

Windows these days will load with the basic drivers -- WU will find what it needs. You can leave any of the "paravirtualised" virtual drivers intact - they occupy minimal space.

(If your original Guest is a Virtio drive then cloning is no good as the target will also be in Virtio format even though its Windows and won't boot outside the original VM environment. Imaging copies the data as data rather than physically sector byte for byte. It's like reading say Linux shared files from a remote server using a Windows client e.g your laptop).

There probably are other ways but this one seems the most foolproof - and I've tried plenty -- it's particularly horrible say converting vdmk (vmware type files) if these are split into multiple files too. !!!!

Activation / other issues *might arise* but if staying on the same hardware then this shouldn't present a problem.

Cheers
jimbo

Why complicate matters? Just convert the virtual hard disk from VirtualBox to VMWare or convert the whole virtual machine to VMWare, see these Google AI instructions.

I know that the conversion might not succeed, that's why I told you to create a copy of the virtual machine and try to convert the copy. Keep the original files safe.

PS: See this Google search of how to convert from .vdi to .vmdk virtual disk format.

jimbo45 said:

is to start with a VM running under KVM/QEMU on Linux is a bit of a mess but involved

Click to expand...

i didn't understand this one.. qemu and using virt-manager as GUI is really easy.

I think he meant to clone the virtual disk to a physical disk (USB hard disk or USB flash drive) and then use this USB to clone to a new virtual disk at VMWare. But why go through all that trouble? I think VirtualBox has a tool that can convert it's own .vdi virtual disk to VMWare's .vmdk All he has to do is create a new virtual machine in VMWare and use this converted disk (existing virtual disk option) and then try to boot Windows. Upon successful boot into Windows he can then uninstall VirtualBox Additions and install VMWare Tools. It's simpler than it sounds and if you do it a couple more times it will seem much easier.

I have done something similar before. I had a computer that I didn't need anymore but wanted to have access to a specific application. So I removed the disk, connected to another computer and then created a VMWare virtual machine with that physical disk (advanced options) instead of a virtual disk. This is called computer virtualization. Windows loaded fine, I installed VMWare Tools and I could run the specific application when I needed without having a tower taking valuable space in my room. Of course you might have to activate Windows and Office again and some other applications.