virtualbox.org

Hi everybody,
I created a VM with W2K SP4 Rollup1 as guest under XP SP3 as host (VirtualBox Version 3.2.8 r64453). Everything works fine except one thing: If I try to set up a 2nd monitor for the VM (Display settings -> Monitor count) and start this VM this additional monitor is shown but remains black (1st monitor works well). I tried to let the W2K guest find the new monitor with the hardware assistant (this worked fine for the missing serial port, another problem I had before), but W2K doesn't find any new monitor, and under the desktop properties of the W2K guest (right-click on guest desktop -> properties -> settings) there's no 2nd monitor I can activate or adjust (my host PC has a dual monitor graphic card with two monitors attached, both work well).

Any ideas ?

Regards from Berlin/Germany

cpschnuffel

You don't state if you installed the Guest Additions or not. Please install them and try again.

Hi Sasquatch,
thanks for your quick reply. Sorry, I forgot this to mention; of course I have installed the guest additions, long before I tried to set up a 2nd monitor. I give you a screenshot.
Make it sense to reinstall the guest additions?

Regards,
cpschnuffel

Hi sasquatch,
in the meantime I tried to reinstall the guest additions while having activated 2 monitors; no change...

cpschnuffel

Ok, next update: Seems to be a problem of VirtualBox with W2K; I tried an XP guest, and setting up a second monitor was done with a snap.

cpschnuffel

I thought as much. There is no known limitation for it though, which is a shame. You would expect that every Windows Guest that has GA support would have multi monitor support too. But, Now that you confirmed that it works with XP, it does ring a small bell that it was mentioned in the changelog.

Hm, where is it mentioned? I read the changelog for 3.2.8 and found nothing about this except that the multi-monitor support was introduced with VirtualBox 3.2.0.
The user manual simply says in chapter 13 (Known limitations): "Guest multi-monitor support. This feature is currently only supported with Windows guests." Perhaps it would be a good idea to specify here that only windows guests with XP and newer are currently supported.
Do you see a chance to implement the multi-monitor feature for W2K in the next release of VirtualBox? Or is this not a restriction of VirtualBox but a restriction of W2K itself?

cpschnuffel

There has been multi-monitor support for quite some time, but since 3.2 it's configurable in the GUI. Somewhere along there, in previous versions, it might have been mentioned. I'm currently installing a Windows 200 Pro system myself to see how it goes.

Thanks in advance for your efforts; please let me know when (and how ) it is working...

Have a nice weekend!

cpschnuffel

The installation finished successfully, set up dual monitor but that's when things went wrong. I first didn't set it yet, and noticed that the cursor on the second monitor actually worked. I then clicked on things and hovered my mouse over items that were on the primary monitor, and they were highlighted! So the secondary monitor was cloning the primary. After running the trouble shooter, installing a second graphics adapter, it went bad. I don't have a proper display now and need to reinstall. I'll do that later and install a second monitor instead then.

I'll keep you posted.

Well, I finished testing. You can add a second display adapter. Doing that will indeed show you the second screen. However, once you enable it, so it extends the display, the screen will be corrupted beyond repair. Settings should be restored after a 15 second wait (or if you press the esc key), but it never recovers.

Ok, that sounds to me that it is NOT possible to add a 2nd monitor when using W2K as guest . Do you think that it will be realized in one of the next releases of VirtualBox? (Only for me as decision support whether I should switch to XP as guest or wait for this release - I absolutly NEED this support for a 2nd monitor)

However - I think this behaviour of VirtualBox is worth a note in the user manual...

cpschnuffel

If I get the choice between 2k and XP, I'm all in for XP. Simply because there are still patches made for XP, it has better hardware support, looks better and doesn't have much difference in performance.

I fully agree with you; so then - good bye, W2K.

Thanks for your help!

cpschnuffel