Full HD guest on 2K/4K monitor

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Windows hosts.
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Andy66
Posts: 2
Joined: 15. Dec 2020, 17:27

Full HD guest on 2K/4K monitor

Post by Andy66 »

I have a 2K monitor (2560x1440) on my Win 10 Host.
I would like to run my Win 7 guest machine at full screen but with Full HD resolution (1980x1080).

Is there a way to do that?

At the moment I'm not able to do that for 2 reasons:
1) 1920x1080 resolution is not available in the guest OS (how to add?).
2) If I change to a lower resolution the guest OS, the client area becomes smaller than the available screen area.

Any help appreciated.
Thank you.
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39134
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: VirtualBox+Oracle ExtPack
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: Full HD guest on 2K/4K monitor

Post by mpack »

Practically speaking, no, there's no way to do that, and you wouldn't want to do it anyway. Scaling 1920 up to 2560 is a non-integer scale factor, so it would look horrible.

Re how to select 1920x1080, if the Guest Additions are installed then that dimension will probably be available on the View|Virtual Screen 1|Resize to xxx by yyy list. Otherwise you can simple drag the virtual monitor to a widescreen aspect ratio and restart, after which Windows will know that it's a widescreen monitor and so should start offering other widescreen settings.

I find that older guests look their best on a 4K monitor if you (a) select a display setting in the guest that can be doubled in size while still fitting on the host screen, and then (2) when the VM is running select View|Virtual Screen 1|Scale to 200%. IME no other scale factor looks good. Do NOT select a global display scale factor in VirtualBox Preferences. Scaling and full screen don't work well together.
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