virtualbox.org

I have a Windows 7 that serves as my workstation VM for my client work. I recently moved the VM from my laptop to my desktop and have been successfully running it for the last two weeks or so with a screen resolution of 1920x1080. Last night I got a pop-up stating that the version of GA was old and I should update it.

No problem...

I updated from 6.0.14 to what my desktop was running: 6.1.26. Immediately the screen resolution dropped to 1024x768 and I was prompted to reboot. Upon reboot, the display was still at 1024x768 and when I logged in the only higher resolution available is 1152x864. I did notice a newer version of VirtualBox was available, so I just finished upgrading to 6.1.30 with the GA also at 6.1.30 however the problem still persists.

Has anyone else seen anything like this? How would I correct this issue?

Clarity Edit: I'm using this VM in full-screen mode at all times.

Update, just trying some things out, I bumped up the video memory on the VM to 96MB and I'm now able to choose resolutions up to 1920x1440, however 1080 is not one of them.

They all look like 4x3 resolutions, not 16x9. Try just dragging a corner of the vm window to make it the size you want. That usually works. It might stutter a few times.

BillG wrote:They all look like 4x3 resolutions, not 16x9. Try just dragging a corner of the vm window to make it the size you want. That usually works. It might stutter a few times.

Just tried that, didn't work.

It almost seems as if my solution will be to roll back to the older version of GA that I know works.

That is odd. Will it go fullscreen if you select that option in View?

BillG wrote:That is odd. Will it go fullscreen if you select that option in View?

yes, that's how I always run it. That's the problem: In full screen I only get these resolutions, but not 1080 (maybe I didn't make that very clear in the OP).

Start the VM from full power off, not save-state. Run until you see the problem happen, then shut down the VM from within the VM OS if possible. If not possible, close the Virtualbox window for the VM with the Power Off option set.

Please right-click the VM in the main Virtualbox window's VM list, choose Show Log. Save the far left tab's log, zip the log file, and post the zip file, using the forum's Upload Attachment tab.

Attached is the zip file from my machine. Clean boot, then shutdown from the login screen.

6.1.30 Guest Additions are installed and running. The last screen size registered is 1440x1050.

VirtualBox's monitor is 4:3. So only 4:3 sizes are shown. Forum guru Mpack posted a method once for getting 16:9 sizes to show up, but I've not been able to get it to work myself. No doubt I missed something.

If the GAs are working and the VM window's View menu > Auto-resize Guest Display is checked, then you should be able to drag the VM window border and the VM OS screen size will follow. Also, Full-screen will set the VM OS to the size of your host monitor.

scottgus1 wrote:6.1.30 Guest Additions are installed and running. The last screen size registered is 1440x1050.

VirtualBox's monitor is 4:3. So only 4:3 sizes are shown. Forum guru Mpack posted a method once for getting 16:9 sizes to show up, but I've not been able to get it to work myself. No doubt I missed something.

If the GAs are working and the VM window's View menu > Auto-resize Guest Display is checked, then you should be able to drag the VM window border and the VM OS screen size will follow. Also, Full-screen will set the VM OS to the size of your host monitor.

I haven't attempted to roll back the guest additions; that's why 6.1.30 is still showing.

Auto-resize is checked but even if I drag the window it stops at whatever the guest's resolution is set to and Full screen doesn't adjust to the size of my monitor. It did these things before the upgrade, so I'm wondering what changed to affect this.

Just tried to roll back the GA to the older, working version: That failed. The downgrade errored out and then when I tried to see if I could boot the VM it complained about a missing USB2 controller and wouldn't boot.

Upgraded back to 6.1.30. The VM booted back up. I uninstalled GA from the guest, rebooted, then re-installed it. Now I get far more screen resolutions to choose from, but still no 1920x1080.

I don't think that you'll get the Windows setting to display any 16:9 resolution. What resolutions does the VM window's menu show (View > Virtual Screen 1 > Resize To ...)?

scottgus1 wrote:Mpack posted a method once for getting 16:9 sizes to show up, but I've not been able to get it to work myself.

My method is exactly what Bill said: carefully drag the window border to a recognized widescreen ratio (16:9 or 16:10), then shut down the guest. When it starts up again VirtualBox and the guest OS should be agreed that you have a widescreen monitor.

First make sure (in the manager) that File|Preferences|Display|Max Guest Screen Size is set to "None".

With these habits I've never had the problem that the OP describes - with Win2K onwards or Linux.

mpack wrote:My method is exactly what Bill said: carefully drag the window border to a recognized widescreen ratio (16:9 or 16:10), then shut down the guest. When it starts up again VirtualBox and the guest OS should be agreed that you have a widescreen monitor.

I tried again (*) to reproduce this with one of my Windows 10 guests, but the results were the same as in earlier attempts:

VirtualBox saves the last resolution (e.g. 1920x1080) as LastGuestSizeHint, and on subsequent reboots of the Windows VM this resolution is used, so far, so good. But the Windows settings dialog still only shows 4:3 resolutions plus the current resolution (e.g. 1920x1080), but not other 16:9 resolutions. Do you see more than two 16:9 resolutions in the Windows settings dialog inside your VM?

(*) Using View > Virtual Screen 1 > Resize To ... led to the same result as carefully dragging the corner in my attempts.