[WorksForMe] Win10 with 2 displays

[wcsbca]

Sequel. Not resolved.

I spent half a day generating and tailoring a Win 10 guest in a VBox machine set up with 2 displays defined, thinking I had it this time.
The second display is not showing when Win 10 guest comes up as it has done in my virtual machines in prior releases, but I got 2 Windows (briefly) by telling Win 10 Settings to "extend these displays"; that appears to be the only choice that would make use of both displays, the other choices being "duplicate these displays", "show only on 1", "show only on 2"). The second display appears, with a window then appearing on the main display asking "Keep changes?" or "Revert?", but a mouse click on either choice is not accepted (doesn't register) and it times out and reverts back to a single display.

This is maddening. I never had an issue like this in prior VBox releases, although I didn't use 2 displays for Win 10, only for Win7. I do currently have a 2-display Win7 Ultimate guest that runs fine.

Log attached.

Windows 10 Pro (64-bit 2-display) 1 Dec 2018-2018-12-01-17-29-33.7z

log of two display issue

(24.59 KiB) Downloaded 34 times

[socratis]

I split from [Resolved] Lost use of mouse clicks in Windows 10 guest (and other 5.2.22 quirks), moved it into the "Windows Guests" area and gave it another title. You can edit the 1st message and change the title if you don't find it appropriate.

First of all, can I ask why do you need two displays in Win10? Do you have 2 physical monitors and you want to spread your guest over the two monitors? If so, can you please tell me the resolutions of each of the monitors?

I would also like to see the "recipe" of the VM, the ".vbox" file:

1. Right-click on the VM in the VirtualBox Manager. Select "Show in Finder/Explorer/Whatever".
2. ZIP the selected ".vbox" file and attach it to your response.

[wcsbca]

Yes I have 2 physical 27" monitors on my computer, each with 1920x1080 resolution, and I want to use a major portion of both for the guests' windows whenever I have a guest up.

Windows 10 Pro (64-bit 2-display) 1 Dec 2018.7z

zip of VBox file

(2.1 KiB) Downloaded 15 times

I guess this violates the one topic rule, but would you look at sound, too, while you're looking at the "recipe", because the Win 10 guest's sound is terrible/unintelligible (so offensive so that I turned it off),
while my Win 7 Ultimate guest's sound is fine... with the same Audio settings in the VBox Manager Profile for both guests: "Windows DirectSound" and "Intel HD Audio", with "Enable Audio Output" checked.

Internally in the guests,
the Win 10 Pro guest "Device Manager">"Sound, video and game controllers" shows "High Definition Audio Device" ...the Win 7 Ultimate guest Device Manager shows the same.
the Win 10 Pro guest "Settings" show "Microphone (High Definition Audio Device)" ...there doesn't seem to be a "Settings" area of Win 7 Ultimate.
Thanks.

[socratis]

I spent half a day

That's it? Others are spending a lifetime!

This is maddening. I never had an issue like this in prior VBox releases

This has absolutely nothing to do with VirtualBox, this has to do with your understanding of how Win10 (or perhaps and other) guest works.

You don't want to Duplicate the screens. The *only* option you want is the Extend one. That's I think where your problems come from. You Duplicate the screens and then you have no idea if you're clicking on screen 1 or screen 2. BTW, VirtualBox makes it easy for you to figure out what's the primary display; it has a ": 1" at the end of the title bar, the 2nd display has a ": 2", and so on. Make sure the :1 is the one that you're looking at.

And if you have 2 monitors, and you want the windows on 2 monitors then move them and separate them. From what I saw in the .vbox file, they're really close.

I replicated your setup (I had to clone one of my VMs) and I don't see any problems as far as VirtualBox goes. You have to solve this from within Windows.

And no, I won't look into the sound, because if you spend 10' searching the forums, you'll see that the sound is problematic for Win10 guests. For some reason, I'm lucky and I don't have sound issues, but I'm not playing YouTube videos on my VM. If the sound is unbearable, open a new thread.

[wcsbca]

Socratis said: "That's it? Others are spending a lifetime!"
...well I did minimal tailoring before I started testing the display issue. I'm beginning to think spend my lifetime gathering info for these posts.

I think I did say that I chose the "Extend" option, perhaps I'm not understanding you.

I said:
I got 2 windows (briefly) by telling Win 10 Settings to "extend these displays"
Until I do that, only one guest window is visible, unlike Win7 guest where both displays show up on the real display immediately as the Win7 guest is starting to boot.

For this Win 10 guest, no second window came up at bootup time. I went to Windows Settings > Systems > Display and then down to Multiple Displays > Extend these displays, whereupon a second (empty) display popped up to the right, partially overlapping the original window and partly-covers a pop-up message window with buttons "Keep Changes", "Revert",
But a mouse click on either choice is not accepted (doesn't register) and it times out and the second display disappears.

Here are photos of (1) choosing a display option, and (2) the new window and request to keep it (that I cannot reply to)
Couldn't get a screenprint, I currently have a glitch with my host Win 10 screenprint I need to fix and my Win7 guest decided to install 89 updates when I shut it down, so its been running nearly 2 hours now and still has a ways to go so I settled for photographs; wow, resolution goes to hell with the upload size restrictions, hope you can decipher the photos.

1.

Choose a display setting - 400x259.JPG (113.12 KiB) Viewed 2733 times

2.

2nd display pops up, but cannot click to keep changes - 400x274kb.JPG (118.54 KiB) Viewed 2733 times

So what should I be doing to get to use both physical displays for my guest?

My Win7 guest, OTOH, brings up 2 virtual displays almost immediately upon being launched (during startup, before Win7 is fully booted/usable), then I just move the second guest virtual display to my second physical display and I can slide Win7 windows across the gap between those 2 virtual displays.

BTW, can you run 2 virtual machines at the same time? I tried it and was not able to, the second virtual machine aborted.

[socratis]

Let's recap...

1. You Win7 works.
2. My Win7/Win10/*.* work.
3. Everybody's *.* work.

Don't you think that this leads us to the conclusion that the problem is not with VirtualBox, but with your specific Win10 instance?

I want you to create a new fresh Win10 VM, minimal installation, and the first, the only thing you're going to do is to test the dual-monitor functionality. Nothing else. Let's see how it goes...

BTW, in the 1st picture you attache, since you have two physical monitors, why don't you move the 2nd window out of the way?

[wcsbca]

you said: "BTW, in the 1st picture you attache, since you have two physical monitors, why don't you move the 2nd window out of the way?"
In the first picture, I left the 2nd window in view specifically so that you could see it in the picture.

What is strange to me is that:
- In the Win7 guest, the second display appears a mere 2 or 3 seconds after Win7 first begins to boot, and it IS an extended desktop, without my having had to tailor any Win7 settings (except resolution).
- In the Win 10 guest the second display does not appear, even after bootup (which takes much longer, perhaps 90 seconds), and then, only when I go into Win 10 Settings and tell Win 10 to extend the desktop across both displays; then the second display appears and Windows asks me if I want to keep that arrangement but doesn't let me click on the button to keep it. Win 10 window shown here:

Win 10 guest after bootup 500x330.jpeg (101.86 KiB) Viewed 2714 times

I will try to find time tomorrow to do the fresh/minimal Win 10 gen. (did that for the photos in my prior post, although I did add some programs to Win 10, but I'll make another attempt)
There's no way to implement Guest Additions until after the Win 10 guest has been generated, is there? I think I did the Win7 and Win 10 guests in the same manner: I gen'd the operating system, then "executed" Guest additions from the virtual Guest Additions CD drive inside the guest.

[socratis]

There's no way to implement Guest Additions until after the Win 10 guest has been generated, is there?

How exactly are you going to install a program (VBoxGuestAdditions) before you have an operating system, where you're going to install into? The GAs *are* a program running in the guest. You need a guest OS before you can install a program, no?

[wcsbca]

OK, I built a new bare-bones virtual Win 10 with 2 displays, but I had very limited success; although I was successful changing the settings to get 2 displays to come up, and installed guest services, the new build is sluggish at best, something seems to be very wrong with it. I can get Microsoft Edge to come up and go to websites, and shut Win 10 down, but cannot get any other icons in the tray to do anything, cannot add an icon to the desktop (if I right-click on the desktop I get the menu that contains "New", but left-clicking "New" does nothing), etc, etc. It is just not usable. Frustrating.

I don't care for the Win 10 desktop, I prefer to use the old Windows interface, so I normally install "Classic Start" on Win 10, and I use other browsers, etc, etc, but I haven't gotten that far because I wanted to keep this two-window Win 10 attempt very simple.

Socratis, I'm posting a log of a very short run, perhaps you can see something in the VBox Manager settings that might account for the sluggishness.

2-display Win 10 Pro (7 Dec 2018)-2018-12-07-23-40-10.7z

Log of a very short run

(24.45 KiB) Downloaded 16 times

[socratis]

and the first, the only thing you're going to do is to test the dual-monitor functionality. Nothing else.

I'm glad we cleared that out!

The title and point of the thread is that you had a problem with 2 displays in a Win10 guest. Since you managed to get it working successfully with a new VM, I'm going to mark the thread as [WorksForMe], because there was clearly something wrong with your first guest.

As for the "sluggishness" of the VM, nothing obvious stands out. Maybe the fact that you're on a HiDPI display, maybe G:\ is an external(?) HD, maybe your host's 3rd party antivirus(?), I don't know. But, as I said 1) there's nothing wrong with the VM setup, 2) there's nothing showing in the logs, and 3) this is not the issue of this thread. One thread per issue, one issue per thread. If you want to continue about the performance of the VM, please open a new thread.

[wcsbca]

Yes, 2 displays are "working", albeit in slow motion.

In summary:

I've used this computer for nearly 3 years, through perhaps 4 different releases of VirtualBox. The host Win 10 performs fine.

I have now gen'd Win 10 three times under this current 5.2.22 iteration of VirtualBox. 2 processors and 8gb of memory are allocated to each Win 10 guest. I only run 1 guest at a time. I was not able to get the second Win10 guest I genned to take a mouseclick to affirm that I wanted to keep the 2nd display, after telling Win 10 to extend the desktop to the second display.

I used the KISS method in my third iteration of a Win 10 guest gen: I did not install anything on it other than guest extensions and 7zip, and I was able to get the second display to come up after changing the display settings to extend across 2 displays; but it is just as unresponsive as prior gens. For example. I can click on the Calculator box and the calculator comes up, but then clicking on a number in the calculator window does nothing, nor can I click the "X" to bring down the calculator program.

Had 2 displays "working" in 1 of the Win 10 guests, but none of the gens have resulted in a usable Win 10 guest because in each case they run very sluggishly, taking 10 to 30 seconds to get any response out of a mouse click, if I get a response at all (that includes the "Windows" icon in the system tray), and sound is unintelligible. Its hard to blame that bad response on my computer, which has a 4ghz i7 with 16gb memory.

I just can't figure it out. I think next I need to consider dropping back to a prior VirtualBox release.

[wcsbca]

Sequel...

I have recently upgraded to VirtualBox 6.0.

I never did get a Win 10 guest working properly with 2 displays. I had generated three separate Win 10 guests, all of them ran like crap; in fact they ran worse with every boot-up until they became comatose for all practical purposes.

What I did find is that if I change the VBox settings for the guest back to one display, the Win 10 guest seems to run fine again (I haven't used it long enough yet to be certain it will stay that way, but the 2-display setting caused it to be verrrrry slow almost immediately).

I hate to give up that 2-display capability because I am so used to having it on my Win 10 host, where it is normal for me to have 5 to 10 windows open on my two-display desktop.

[Jovial_Jack]

I have a strong expectation I observe the same "unable to select 'keep changes' behavior as @wcsbca

My vBox guest works great with single display config. Hadn't need for a second guest display until just now. I have a pair of 1920 x 1200 displays. vBox guest has additions installed with "auto-resize guest display" activated, so the guest display was 1920 x 1070. Selecting extend display would kick up the UAC like banner with the "keep changes or revert" buttons with revert as the default after 15 secs countdown as to be expected.

Both the mouse and keyboard would continue to function in the normal shell/desktop environment so I couldn't make the buttons selectable via mouse or keyboard. Not even on screen keyboard or mousekeys. Same behavior when attempting "show only on 2" instead of "extend displays."

Eventually it occurred to me the "auto-resize guest display" feature of vBox may be the cause, so I first activated a standard display resolution "1400x1050" in my guest, then attempted extending displays. I expect other standard res like 1280x1024 will work just the same. Doing so allowed the "keep changes" banner to be selectable and the guest dual displays then functions as expected. I can even toggle back to the "auto-resize guest display" resolution and it continues to work. It appears it's just the initial display changes that are dependent on a standard resolution to actually succeed.

Both my host and guest are Win10 x64 1809 build 17763.253. vBox is Version 5.2.22 r126460 (Qt5.6.2). I haven't bothered to test vBox 6 yet since v5 guest additions are slipstreamed into all of my Linux guests. Hopefully it's a non-issue with vBox 6.

EDIT:
I see the readme for 6.0.2 (Jan 15) has the following. FIXED. Windows guests: multiple monitor fixes with VBoxSVGA graphics.