Virtualbox 7 and vm screen resolution

cereberus · Oct 25, 2022

I have just set a W11 VM up in VB7, and it is unactivated - just testing.

It defaults to 1024x768 screen setting, and I cannot change it as unactivated.

When I do same in Hyper-V enhanced mode, I can set the screen resolution to 1920x1080 or 1366x768 as I wish, even though it is not activated.

So, I activated the vm, but still no ability to change setting.

In device manager, I only see

So I suspect it is a driver issue.

Does anybody know how to enable different screen settings?

OAT · Oct 25, 2022

On a VM, screen res is usually set before launching the VM itself.
If you exit the VM machine and launch VB (the app itself) and go to settings, can't you change it there?
I am a VMWare user so I can't help you much more than that.

LeLibran · Oct 25, 2022

@cereberus

I don't appear to have any similar problem in my test setup. Presumably, you have installed Guest Additions in the VM.

jimbo45 · Oct 25, 2022

For things like proper video resolution on vmware / vbox you need to install ON THE GUEST at first boot -- for vmware -- vmware-tools or vbox -- vbox additions. These will add the proper VM video paravirtualisation rather than the basic Ms video driver which should then allow you to select many more video modes.

Cheers
jimbo

Bree · Oct 25, 2022

cereberus said:
In device manager, I only see

So I suspect it is a driver issue.

Guest Additions should help. But even without it the Microsoft Basic Display Adapter has several resolutions I can choose from in this W10 Pro VM.

You may need to adjust the Video Memory setting to get other options. Mine is set to the maximum 128MB.

Bree · Oct 25, 2022

cereberus said:
It defaults to 1024x768 screen setting, and I cannot change it as unactivated.

Activation has nothing to do with it. For complete flexibility you need to install Guest Additions as @LeLibran suggested and I have now tried.

Chapter 4. Guest Additions

Once installed you can choose the size of the virtual screen that your VM will use from the View menu. Without Guest Additions all are greyed out and 1024x768 is the only display it will allow the VM to use.

cereberus · Oct 25, 2022

Bree said:
Activation has nothing to do with it. For complete flexibility you need to install Guest Additions as @LeLibran suggested and I have now tried.

Chapter 4. Guest Additions

Once installed you can choose the size of the virtual screen that your VM will use from the View menu. Without Guest Additions all are greyed out and 1024x768 is the only display it will allow the VM to use.

View attachment 43347

I have thought I had guest additions installed but I do not get that menu. Reading link, it seems I have not properly installed that - many thanks and good luck on health matters.

cereberus · Oct 26, 2022

Bree said:
Activation has nothing to do with it. For complete flexibility you need to install Guest Additions as @LeLibran suggested and I have now tried.

Chapter 4. Guest Additions

Once installed you can choose the size of the virtual screen that your VM will use from the View menu. Without Guest Additions all are greyed out and 1024x768 is the only display it will allow the VM to use.

View attachment 43347

I added guest additions and it now gives extra resolution from Windows but I do not have rhe View Menu option at all to select other options. Is VB7 different?

grumpus · Oct 26, 2022

cereberus said:
I added guest additions and it now gives extra resolution from Windows but I do not have rhe View Menu option at all to select other options. Is VB7 different?

No. Guest window -> View -> Virtual Screen 1 -> Resize to -> Resize to 1024x768 (for example).

Bree · Oct 26, 2022

cereberus said:
I do not have the View Menu option at all to select other options. Is VB7 different?

Sounds like you are running the VirtualBox VM in Scaled Mode. You need to switch it to Windowed Mode to see the View Menu at the top of the window. Press Host+C to switch (by default your Host key is the right Ctrl key).

VB6 or VB7 makes no difference, I've just enabled nested virtualisation for this Hyper-V VM so I could use viBoot to run up a Macrium image of the host machine above before it got the VB7 upgrade (a VM running in a VM - that was fun :wink:

). The menu options are the same. I couldn't install Guest Additions though (it gave a BSOD in the VM within a VM) so it's stuck with 1024x768 and the options are all greyed out - it does show that they're there though.

cereberus · Oct 26, 2022

Bree said:
Sounds like you are running the VirtualBox VM in Scaled Mode. You need to switch it to Windowed Mode to see the View Menu at the top of the window. Press Host+C to switch (by default your Host key is the right Ctrl key).

VB6 or VB7 makes no difference, I've just enabled nested virtualisation for this Hyper-V VM so I could use viBoot to run up a Macrium image of the host machine above before it got the VB7 upgrade (a VM running in a VM - that was fun ). The menu options are the same. I couldn't install Guest Additions though (it gave a BSOD in the VM within a VM) so it's stuck with 1024x768 and the options are all greyed out - it does show that they're there though.

View attachment 43402

Yeah - thanks. I finally sussed it about scaled mode but ran into other issues i.e. the windows menus would hang and all I could do was shut down vm. So I have given up. I tested the thing I wanted though anyway i.e. performance of vb7 (hyper-v off) versus Hyper-V, and proved as always, Hyper-V outperforms VB7.

I also tried vmware, and it ran fine. I will wait until vb7 is more mature and try again.