How to get dual monitor to work?

[alan93]

I am hosting this on windows 7 64 bit but there is no detection of my dual vid card.
It works on my lapt top when I have the monitor hooked up to it. It is also win 7 64 bit.

What is required for this?

[stefan.becker]

Guest Additions are installed?!

[mpack]

This is a virtual machine - the capabilities of your host are not directly relevant.

If you want your VM to have multiple monitors then configure more than one monitor in Settings|Display|Monitor Count. This feature is available regardless of how many physical monitors you have. Of course if you wish you can drag one of these virtual displays onto your second monitor.

[alan93]

Guest Additions are installed?!

where are guest additions?

This is a virtual machine - the capabilities of your host are not directly relevant.

If you want your VM to have multiple monitors then configure more than one monitor in Settings|Display|Monitor Count. This feature is available regardless of how many physical monitors you have. Of course if you wish you can drag one of these virtual displays onto your second monitor.

Drag a "virtual display"? how? where?

I have 2 phyciscal monitors.
I did select 2 monitors on both setups, laptop & desktop (using a kvm switch). The lap top works. I get two screens, the other computer just has a second screen that is black. If i put my mouse over it it goes to the virtual screen.

Trying to figure out why one works and other doesn't.

[alan93]

ok found guest additions, installed it.
it works now thanks!

[dr_cronik]

You will need configure the display properties of the Virtual machine.

In the display properties window select the 2nd monitor and check 'Extend my windows desktop onto this monitor'
Also configure the resolution, position, and color quality.

You will need to assign a considerable amount of video memory in the virtual machine settings to get mine working without anu lag I had to assign 64Mb.

[icegood]

I have 2 monitors and from main menu view i see only options to which of host monitors i could assign 'virtual screen 1'.
Monitor count in settings is applied to 2.
How could i obtain 'virtual screen 2'?
Host - Win7
Guest - Win XP

Thanks

[Exile]

I had a similar issue where the second virtual monitor wouldn't show up in my guest OS. I was running Windows 10 as the host with Fedora as my guest OS inside VirtualBox. I had installed Guest Additions on Fedora and I had set up my VirtualBox settings to give Fedora 2 monitors but I was only ever seeing one screen show up. Fedora also only saw one monitor available. Running xrandr showed that I had a VGA-1 screen working correctly but VGA-2 was disconnected.

Turns out there is an option on the VirtualBox window under "View > Virtual Screen 2" called "Enable" that will turn the screen on for you. That way you can get your second window for VirtualBox.

It took me a long time and multiple guest OS installations to figure this out, so hopefully somebody finds it useful!

tl;dr - RTFM

[mpack]

That's a useful tip, thanks.

[themadhatter0]

+1 for this. I updated the VM kernel, virtualbox, virtualbox additions, and I couldn't get it to work.
Come to find out, the "Enable" option for the second monitor is only available in the regular view, so when my VM automatically switched to seamless after I logged in, I didn't see it (it only provides the ability to switch the monitor the display lives on).
I switched back to regular view, enabled the second monitor, and was able to switch back to seamless mode and it works great.

[jersingh]

I had a similar issue where the second virtual monitor wouldn't show up in my guest OS. I was running Windows 10 as the host with Fedora as my guest OS inside VirtualBox. I had installed Guest Additions on Fedora and I had set up my VirtualBox settings to give Fedora 2 monitors but I was only ever seeing one screen show up. Fedora also only saw one monitor available. Running xrandr showed that I had a VGA-1 screen working correctly but VGA-2 was disconnected.

Turns out there is an option on the VirtualBox window under "View > Virtual Screen 2" called "Enable" that will turn the screen on for you. That way you can get your second window for VirtualBox.

It took me a long time and multiple guest OS installations to figure this out, so hopefully somebody finds it useful!

tl;dr - RTFM

Finally solved this after reading your post. I would have spent days (more than I already had) trying to figure this out. Thanks for posting!

[Rhythmdvl]

I had a similar issue where the second virtual monitor wouldn't show up in my guest OS. I was running Windows 10 as the host with Fedora as my guest OS inside VirtualBox. I had installed Guest Additions on Fedora and I had set up my VirtualBox settings to give Fedora 2 monitors but I was only ever seeing one screen show up. Fedora also only saw one monitor available. Running xrandr showed that I had a VGA-1 screen working correctly but VGA-2 was disconnected.

Turns out there is an option on the VirtualBox window under "View > Virtual Screen 2" called "Enable" that will turn the screen on for you. That way you can get your second window for VirtualBox.

It took me a long time and multiple guest OS installations to figure this out, so hopefully somebody finds it useful!

tl;dr - RTFM

Thank you.

I just reinstalled a guest and tried again, putzed a bit in frustration and decided to search the problem and found your post.

I have had this problem for, gee, well over a couple years now. Never was too big of a deal; I just kept using an old (12.04?) guest OS that worked with two monitors. I searched high. I searched low. I searched in between. I RTFM several times. Everything said to basic 'turn on dual monitors in VM settings', but NONE said to use the in-guest machine>view menu. Until now.


The point of all this was to take a moment to thank you very much for clearly solving a long-term issue I've had.


I'm going to go back to TFM and see where I overlooked it.



EDITI just went back to RTFM and still couldn't find it. Now that I know what I'm searching for, it should have been easy. Nothing in 3.5 Display Settings says to go to the View menu of the guest and tick 'enable'. Closest I can find is "You can configure the relationship between guest and host monitors using the view menu" Makes it an even better reply. Again, thanks.