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Numlock status on boot

Posted: 28. Feb 2017, 10:42
by NA!
Since as it seems, there is no way to alter any BIOS settings in VBox, it would be really great if there was an option in settings to let the user define the NumLock state at boot.

Re: Numlock status on boot

Posted: 28. Feb 2017, 11:02
by erdeslawe
All of the online guides I've seen are OS Specific, i.e. they do have to be set/activated within the OS, in which case you would have to work directly with the individual Guest OS(s), not the Host OS/VirtualBox. For MS Windows there are many online guides to the Registry tweak(s) required, and similar guides for Linux variants.

Re: Numlock status on boot

Posted: 28. Feb 2017, 11:08
by NA!
erdeslawe wrote:All of the online guides I've seen are OS Specific, i.e. they do have to be set/activated within the OS, in which case you would have to work directly with the individual Guest OS(s), not the Host OS/VirtualBox.
Yup, i know. I'm talking about the BIOS one. All BIOSs (the older ones at least) have such a setting. It would be nice if there was one in VBox too.

Re: Numlock status on boot

Posted: 28. Feb 2017, 14:19
by scottgus1
A quick search of the pdf version reveals three things:

First, the manual writers chose to write both "numlock" and "num lock", so we'd have to search for both.

Second, searching for "numlock" we find that the only reference is under "Known Issues", section 14.2, that Mac hosts don't have numlock emulation yet.

Third, searching "num lock" has this as the only reference:
The Manual wrote:15.19 Version 5.0.4 (2015-09-08)
This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:
.........
• GUI: fixed issues with synchronization of Caps lock / Num lock / Scroll lock on Windows hosts (bug #14302)
I sure seem to remember some Vboxmanage command about numlock, but I can't find it searching the manual, and I might be remembering incorrectly. Might have been about the lights rather than the key status itself.

It seems that on Windows and Linux hosts, the status of numlock in the guest is supposed to be the same as the numlock status in the host.

All the settings in a normal old-school BIOS that the developers determined to make any sense in adjusting in a guest are in the Guest settings in the main Virtualbox window, or in the Vboxmanage commands. We can consider the guest Settings to be our guest's BIOS adjustment page.

If you can make a case for why Numlock should always be a certain way when starting a particular guest you can suggest it to the developers as an enhancement on the Bugtracker. But having the guest follow the keyboard status rather than a BIOS setting seems to me to be better. Imagine someone sets the "BIOS" to have Numlock off when starting the guest rather than synchronize with the host Numlock status, and forgets about it, then starts the guest while used to the usual Numlock On behavior of the host, he'll go around the forums saying "Virtualbox is broken!"

Re: Numlock status on boot

Posted: 1. Sep 2017, 11:55
by lornova
This is my top complaint on VirtualBox.

Relying on guest OS hacks is bad practice and advice, this has to be fixed in VM configuration, because that is the way physical systems behave!

Re: Numlock status on boot

Posted: 1. Sep 2017, 20:17
by Martin
I haven't seen a physical system BIOS with a with a num lock setting for many years... ;-)

Re: Numlock status on boot

Posted: 14. Dec 2018, 16:42
by notthere
In case someone else stumbles across this via Google - this is the solution (may have to be run while VirtualBox is closed):

Code: Select all

VBoxManage setextradata "<machine-name>" GUI/HidLedsSync "0"
Source (and more detailed info in case you need it): https://martinvanbeurden.nl/blog/virtua ... weirdness/

Re: Numlock status on boot

Posted: 14. Dec 2018, 18:22
by socratis
notthere wrote:In case someone else stumbles across this via Google
In case someone else wants to actually read the User Manual (which BTW comes in searchable PDF format), go to chapter 9.28. Support for keyboard indicators synchronization, no need for 3rd party sites. In fact, I'll quote the whole thing here:
This feature makes the host keyboard lights match those of the virtual machine's virtual keyboard when the machine window is selected. It is currently implemented for Mac OS X and Windows hosts and available as of releases 4.2.24 and 4.3.8. The feature can be enabled using the following command:
  • 
    VBoxManage setextradata "VM name" GUI/HidLedsSync "1"
In order to disable it, use the same command but change "1" to "0", or use the VBoxManage command to remove the extra data. This is a per-VM setting and it is disabled by default.
BTW @notthere, makes me wonder why you posted this info on another person's thread, and not on your very own "Num lock? Still? Seriously?" that deals with the same issue...

Re: Numlock status on boot

Posted: 8. Feb 2019, 13:41
by nembokid81
Hi, I had the same problem. I have VirtualBox 5.2, host machine Windows 8, guest VM Linux Lubuntu 18. I solved this way:
from Lubuntu settings: Preferences > Keyboard > Activate numpad at start
Hope it helps.

Re: Numlock status on boot

Posted: 19. Oct 2021, 10:49
by elevenelks
I am not sure if the described setting would trigger or solve my problem.
When I had installed a Linux Endeavour OS after trying to boot it from the vdi the screen stayed black and the screen message was flickering, like blinking on and off on top of the black creen: "scroll lock on" and "scroll lock off" permanently.
Maybe it has to do with the situation, tht I connect to my workstation PC (which is the virtualbox host, a Z440 by HP) via itarian, one RMM tool. Then I use the virtualbox on the remotely managed system from here on my laptop (a zbook by HP).
Is this a common behaviuor that happens with the installation of Arch?

Re: Numlock status on boot

Posted: 19. Oct 2021, 10:53
by mpack
"Suggestions" is not for support questions. Please ask your own question in an appropriate forum, i.e. "Linux Guests".