virtualbox.org

I am currently setting up an XP Guest with short term memory loss using Ubuntu 10.10 as host, with VirtualBox 3.2.10. When the machine boots up, I have a startup script launching VBoxSDL with the -fullscreen flag to make the virtual machine start up in full screen mode. When it starts up, the resolution is funky, (1024 x 644), with black bars on the top and bottom. If you go to manually change the resolution in XP, 1024x644 is the max resolution. If you Ctrl + F out, and Ctrl + F back in, then you can change XP to go 1024 x 768.

I've tried the following commands with the same results:
And every combination thereof. Interestingly enough, if I leave off the -fullscreen, and use the -fixedmode, it will start up windowed, but still have those black banners at the top and bottom.

None of this happens with VBoxManage or the VirtualBox binary. I also get the same behavior without the -discardstate, so it isn't a savestate issue.

I'm stumped. Any ideas? Any way to control the virtual extensions to force the resolution change by command line, either from the host or guest?

And I quote from the users manual.

9.2. VBoxSDL, the simplified VM displayer
9.2.1. Introduction
VBoxSDL is a simple graphical user interface (GUI) that lacks the nice point-and-click support which VirtualBox, our main GUI, provides. VBoxSDL is currently primarily used internally for debugging VirtualBox and therefore not officially supported. Still, you may find it useful for environments where the virtual machines are not necessarily controlled by the same person that uses the virtual machine.

Weird thing do happen in SDL. It has not been extended to a acceptable level and from the sounds of it it will not be any time soon.

Thanks for the info. It is too bad, because it does a lot of cool things that VBoxManage doesn't (fullscreen, discardstate, was hoping to play with the ACPI stuff too!

I set it up on a different machine, with expected results. I'll stick with what I can do in VBoxManage for now I guess.

Anyone know of any way to get VBoxManage to not fork?

Nevermind, figured it out. Apparently, VirtualBox (the program) can take various command line switches as well, and it doesn't fork.