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Win10 VMDK guest on Manjaro host

Posted: 13. May 2021, 19:10
by lpmanjaro
Win10 on a separate SSD from Linux SSD. Vbox 6.1.22, matching Extensions, GA 6.1.22 installed in Win10. Physical display is 1920x1080 (16:9 ratio) Windows boots raw and comes up in 1920x1080 display configuration just fine. Win10 boots virtual but display comes up 1920x1440 and attempting to change display in windows "settings" does NOT show 1920x1080. Attempted several vboxmanage setextradata values to no avail. Oh, did set virtual parms "display" to automatic. Searching log find a strange comment about display at 1920x1043, whats with that ?
Any ideas about what to try next are welcome and appreciated.

Re: Win10 VMDK guest on Manjaro host

Posted: 14. May 2021, 16:39
by scottgus1
lpmanjaro wrote:Win10 VMDK guest ... Win10 on a separate SSD ... Windows boots raw ... Win10 boots virtual
Are you booting the Windows 10 via dual-boot on the host PC and also booting it via Raw Disk Access?
lpmanjaro wrote:Searching log
Can you please let us try that too? :D

Zip the log file, and post the zip file, using the forum's Upload Attachment tab.

Re: Win10 VMDK guest on Manjaro host

Posted: 14. May 2021, 21:08
by lpmanjaro
I boot via GRUB and chain boot to windows boot loader when booting raw Win10. Display works as it should.
When starting Win10 in vbox, sometimes vbox selects grub and other times vbox selects the win bootloader directly.
I think the difference depends on how my bios (gigabyte ga-990fa amd motherboard) has selected the first drive to boot.
In any case both vbox win loads set display to 1920x1440.
I'm not home just now, so will bundle up the log and ship off next week.
Thanks for the interest !!
Regards

Re: Win10 VMDK guest on Manjaro host

Posted: 14. May 2021, 22:50
by scottgus1
When 10 boots directly on the PC, it accesses the hardware directly and can do whatever it can normally do on the physical hardware.

When 10 boots in Virtualbox, all the 'hardware' is now virtual. It's different hardware than the host computer hardware, including now using the Virtualbox video card, not the physical video card.

When running in Virtualbox, 10 needs Guest Additions installed to have the drivers needed to run the Virtualbox video card and run Full-Screen, and then it can run at the 1920x1080 of the host monitor.

Re: Win10 VMDK guest on Manjaro host

Posted: 15. May 2021, 00:33
by lpmanjaro
I I did

I indicated that GA 6,122 was installed and do understand that vbox is presenting a virtual physical world to windows. The issue appears to be that vbox isn't presenting a 16:9 ratio to windows for the "virtual" display so windows won't give met that choice.

Re: Win10 VMDK guest on Manjaro host

Posted: 15. May 2021, 03:02
by scottgus1
Even if you make the VM go 1920x1080 it will be off the side of your monitor if it is still windowed. The windows title bar, menu bar and status bar all take up space, and the bottom of the window will be off your 1920x1080 screen.

How did this work?
scottgus1 wrote:run Full-Screen, and then it can run at the 1920x1080 of the host monitor.
scottgus1 wrote:Zip the log file, and post the zip file, using the forum's Upload Attachment tab.

Re: Win10 VMDK guest on Manjaro host

Posted: 15. May 2021, 17:32
by lpmanjaro
Ive tried full screen and scaling and shrinking and stretching but none are the issue.
I need windows guest to give me a 1920x1080 choice when I right click a blank spot in the screen. ( Setting menu for display)
when I divide 1920/1080 I get 1.777777, but all the rations I get when viewing/changing display in win10/guest is 1.3333.
To my thinking vbox is not detecting the physical display size correctly and "lying" to windows.
The physical display is a 1920x1080 (16:9 ratio)....

When I get home next week (Actually in a day or 2) I will upload the log.

Re: Win10 VMDK guest on Manjaro host

Posted: 15. May 2021, 18:07
by FlexMcMurphy
I had a problem like this with Ubuntu mate as host and Win 10 Pro as guest.

In my case the resolution of the host was not set to 1920 x 1080 because I was playing around with the

Code: Select all

xrandr
command in the host.

Make sure your Manjaro host is actually set to 1920 x 1080. There are Manjaro settings where you can tweak that. I'm not certain but scaling settings in Manjaro may also influence what resolution options you are offered to select in the Win 10 guest.

Other settings I have...
Virtualbox Manager > Tools > Preferences > Display > Maximum Guest Screen Size = Hint then..
Width=1920 and Height=1080
Scale Factor = 100%

Flex

Re: Win10 VMDK guest on Manjaro host

Posted: 15. May 2021, 23:37
by lpmanjaro
Thanks for the thoughts, Flex. Ive tried them all. There are a number of "vboxmanage setextradata" settings Ive tried as well, still to no avail.

Re: Win10 VMDK guest on Manjaro host

Posted: 17. May 2021, 23:54
by lpmanjaro
Finally back at "homebase" here is the vbox log requested above.

Re: Win10 VMDK guest on Manjaro host

Posted: 18. May 2021, 20:07
by scottgus1
Your VM has Guest Additions installed, good.

I tried with a Windows 7 VM with Guest Additions installed. The only method I could find to make the VM's display size show 1920x1080 in the dropdown is to put the VM into full-screen on a 1920x1080 host.

When I tried the Virtualbox window's View menu, Virtual Screen 1 >, set to 1920x1080, while the VM was in Window mode on a 1920x1080 host, not Full Screen, the Virtualbox window expanded to its maximum available desktop size aside from the host Taskbar, and the VM screen size expanded to the maximum size it could get, but not up to 1920x1080. If the host screen was larger than 1920x1080, perhaps a 4K screen, it is quite likely that the View menu setting could force to 1920x1080.

The rest of the choices remained 4:3 choices.

I also tried:

VBoxManage setextradata "VM name" CustomVideoMode1 1920x1080x32

But it did not force the VM screen to change size.

There may be 3rd-party solutions for setting screen size in an OS aside from the OS's built-in settings. Windows does have such 3rd-party command-line tools. That may be able to force 1920x1080.

It appears that the "monitor" Virtualbox provides to the VM OS is only a 4:3 monitor.

Re: Win10 VMDK guest on Manjaro host

Posted: 19. May 2021, 15:09
by lpmanjaro
I agree with your findings they were my experience also. I have 2 windows on 2 separate ssd's but am having a problem with Vbox not able to boot a vmdk of the other win. That attempt to see if the host os might be the issue fails with "unmountable boot volume". So I'm struggling to solve that issue to answer the question "is the host to Vbox an issue?"

Re: Win10 VMDK guest on Manjaro host

Posted: 19. May 2021, 15:53
by fth0
lpmanjaro wrote:Searching log find a strange comment about display at 1920x1043, whats with that ?
VirtualBox asks the QT5 library in the host OS for the maximum size of the application window using QApplication::desktop()->screenGeometry(iHostScreenIndex), and the result probably depends on the desktop decorations of the host OS.

Next, the Windows 10 guest OS always uses the 1024x768 screen resolution during the startup, this is where probably the 4:3 (1.33) aspect ratio originates from. So I'd ask the question, what mechanism lets VirtualBox offer 16:9 resolutions in other scenarios?

Please reboot your host and execute the following command in a terminal:

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VBoxManage setextradata "win10daily" "GUI/LastGuestSizeHint" "1600,900"
This will pretend that VirtualBox used the specified (16:9) window size during the previous VM run, and hopefully influence the offered resolutions during the next VM run.

Re: Win10 VMDK guest on Manjaro host

Posted: 19. May 2021, 17:42
by lpmanjaro
Thanks for the thought fth0, tried it, and it came up 4:3 ratio, IE best windows would adjust too was 1280x960 or still 4:3. That is the ratio I've been getting no matter what I change.
I did a vboxmanage getextradata win10data to verify that your setting "took" and it did.

Re: Win10 VMDK guest on Manjaro host

Posted: 19. May 2021, 21:22
by fth0
There is an additional global setting you could check and try:

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VBoxManage getextradata global "GUI/MaxGuestResolution"
VBoxManage setextradata global "GUI/MaxGuestResolution" "1920,1080"
If that doesn't help, you can reset it afterwards using

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VBoxManage setextradata global "GUI/MaxGuestResolution"