I want my guest software to cover the WHOLE screen

[Ralluph]

Hi,

I have successfully created my first Virtual machine. My Host is W10x64 and my guest is WXPx32 SP 3.
But no matter what I try, I can't get the virtual window to cover the whole screen, without gaps. I found it easy to create a virtual machine and load the guest OS. But after that I can't find any information as to how to set the resolution I want, or how to set the VM to cover the whole screen. If it is in the Help files I have surely missed it. So maybe someone can point me in the right direction.

Sincerely,

Ralf

[scottgus1]

All the extra screen size bells and whistles come from installing Guest Additions in the VM. See section 4 in the manual.

Some folks have reported that 6.1.32 Guest Additions has problems installing in XP. A few reports have indicated that disconnecting the VM's network "cable" in the VM helps the Guest Additions install better. See the VM window's Devices menu, Network, or the Network icon in the VM window's status bar to disconnect the "cable".

[BillG]

That is a great help! I have had this problem installing the GAs in XP for some time, not just 6.1.32 . I had them installed (it took a ridiculous amount of time waiting for timeouts) so I tried to uninstall them to try the suggested fix, but even that hung. I cleared the Cable Connected checkbox and both uninstall and reinstall ran as expected. I am very glad somebody found what was hanging it up.

[fth0]

I understand that it was discovered that installing the VirtualBox Guest Additions (GA) works better without a network connection in some cases. But did anyone investigate the background reason for that?

[scottgus1]

I don't recall a report of why disconnecting the cable works around the trouble. My copy of XP sp3 doesn't have this trouble, but it's a pre-activate volume license copy, I don't know if that has anything to do with it. I have an old sp2 disc lying about somewhere, haven't got it out yet to try it.

I have a vague suspicion that since code signing has moved on a tad since XP days, that XP may be trying to phone home to get an updated security certificate or some such. With the network in place, XP is waiting for the server connection so it can inquire, and Microsoft has turned off the server, or XP's internet protocols are too old so it can't connect to a 3rd party like Oracle, etc, and has a gobs-of-minutes timeout. However, with the network disconnected, XP knows it cannot connect and just presses on with the install right away.

[fth0]

Sounds reasonable to me. If somebody encounters the issue again, a Wireshark-Trace of the DNS packets could substantiate this theory.

[Ralluph]

Hi all,

Thank you for the answers.

After reading the answers, I realized that I did not install the guest additions in Windows XP "safe mode". Should I correct that mistake? Should I delete the existing, mistakenly installed guest additions first?

Sincerely,

Ralf

[scottgus1]

No need to reinstall, as you won't get any benefit.

The Safe Mode install recommendation was to allow 3D acceleration graphics in the XP VM. However, starting with 6.1.0, 3D was removed for Windows OS VMs earlier than 7. 3D acceleration had a security hole big enough to fly a SpaceX Starship through, so the devs changed it, but they did not port the changes back to Vista & earlier, probably due to lack of Oracle customer interest. So XP can no longer have 3D acceleration in 6.1.x, so no need to install Guest Additions in Safe Mode.

[Ralluph]

Thank you scottgus,

I have one WXP VM running 99.9% perfect. I then created another identical one that I named "virgin". The intent was to clone it to create other VMs. But I would never use the "virgin" for anything other than cloning. However, I cannot get the "virgin" to respond the same as the one that runs 99.9% perfect. I cannot increase the screen resolution to fill my monitor. I tried to compare the settings of the two VMs to each other and the only difference I found, was under the "storage" tab:

VM 1: IDE Primary device 0 (HDD)
IDE Primary device 1 (CD ROM)
IDE Secondary device 0 (VBOXguestadditions.ISO)

VM "Virgin": IDE Primary device 0 (HDD)
IDE Primary device 1 (VBOXadditions.ISO)
IDE Secondary device 0 (CDROM)

Sincerely,

Ralf

[scottgus1]

Did you install Guest Additions in the 'virgin'? If you did, please Start the VM from full normal shutdown, not save-state. Run until you see the problem happen, then shut down the VM from within the VM's OS if possible. If not possible, close the Virtualbox window for the VM with the Power Off option set.

Right-click the VM in the main Virtualbox window's VM list, choose Show Log. Save the far left tab's log, zip it, and post the zip file, using the forum's Upload Attachment tab.

[Ralluph]

Hi scottgus,

Yes, I installed the Guest Additions in the "virgin".

The zipped file you requested, is attached.

Windows XP 32 Virgin-2022-03-26-15-40-55.zip

(32.18 KiB) Downloaded 6 times

sincerely,

Ralf

[scottgus1]

Thanks for the log. I see the 6.1.32 Guest Additions running, good. I lean towards not enough video RAM for full-screen, maybe?

00:00:02.523451 Host RAM: 16217MB (15.8GB) total, 13792MB (13.4GB) available
00:00:02.634893 RamSize <integer> = 0x000000000c000000 (201 326 592, 192 MB)
00:00:02.635023 VRamSize <integer> = 0x0000000001000000 (16 777 216, 16 MB)
00:02:03.790209 Display::i_handleDisplayResize: uScreenId=0 pvVRAM=000000000c270000 w=2560 h=1334 bpp=32 cbLine=0x2800 flags=0x0 origin=0,0

32-bit 2560x1334 takes 13MB RAM, the VM has only 16MB, so only one frame can draw.

Also, regular RAM is very low. XP runs better with more, and the clones can be modified as needed.

Further, the VM has only one processor. XP is OK with one, but runs smoother with 2. However, you can't move to 2 processors on XP after install without some finagling.

I'd suggest starting over on a new XP VM with 2 processors, 512MB-1GB regular RAM, and 64-128MB video RAM.

[fth0]

I cannot increase the screen resolution to fill my monitor.

What exactly did you try and what happened?

32-bit 2560x1334 takes 13MB RAM, the VM has only 16MB, so only one frame can draw.

Under the assumption that the host's monitor has a resolution of 2560x1440, I would have expected the VirtualBox Manager to complain about any setting below 30 MB ((2560 * 1440 * 4 + 1) * 2).

[Ralluph]

Hi scottgus and fth0,

I think that in a previous post scottgus told me that the Guestadditions should be installed after the VM is created. I of course had ignored his advice, hence the problem I encountered. So yesterday I deleted the Guestadditions and re-installed them after starting the VM.
Now everything works. My VM now runs full screen at 2562x1336 resolution.

Also, I will create a new VM with two procesors according with scottgus' recommendations.

Thank you very much to both of you and I consider this thread SOLVED.

sincerely,

Ralf