An extremely aggrivating problem

[Marxam]

Hello, I'm a new user to Vbox, and I'm desperately needing some help.

I'm trying to run a VM that is just a disc (or Iso, in this case). it runs as a self-contained OS, and never touches a hard drive. It runs fine, but I cannot change the resolution on the VM, which makes it ineffective for my work.

I've tried setting the global max guest resolution to a few different things, and I've assigned custom video modes to the VM, but no matter what I do I can't pull it out of the default 800x600, can anyone help me out with this?

If it helps, the self contained os seems based off of Linux, possibly ubuntu. The problem with it is that there's no way through the settings on the restrictive disc, to change the resolution from inside the OS.

[BillG]

You will need to actually install the OS and then install the guest additions. You cannot install the guest additions into the read-only version.

[Marxam]

I'm well aware that I can't install the guest additions, but the OS requires it be run from a disc. It has no installation ability and no method for handling discs, as it was meant to run from a disc itself.

[mpack]

So what is your point? How do you expect VirtualBox to be able to influence the display size used by the guest OS if you are aware it can't install a driver?

The VirtualBox VESA emulation - which is the default if you don't/can't install the GAs - is perfectly capable of 32bit colour at any display size you care to think of. Your problem is that you don't know how to get your guest OS to select it, which is not a VBox problem. Yes, perhaps you could configure a different display size default... but I have a feeling that your guest OS display drivers will immediately override that on bootup, back to 800x600.

[Marxam]

I should have updated the information as it became available, as I found the setting on the disc's OS to change the resolution, however it did nothing upon changing it, it remained 800x600 despite setting it inside the program to 1024x768.

And the guest OS in question uses a 1366x768 resolution when booted outside of virtualbox (still not using the hard drive though) so I'm not sure as to why it works outside of virtualbox and not while using it.

As for the default size, I would love to know how to configure it to start all my virtual machines at 1024x768, at a minimum, if not higher. If you would be able to tell me how to do that I would be very grateful, as i've been trying to get this to work right for some time now.

[Leak]

As for the default size, I would love to know how to configure it to start all my virtual machines at 1024x768, at a minimum, if not higher.

Mind telling us exactly which live CD you're trying to boot so someone else could reproduce this? Or is that top secret?

For what it's worth at least grml comes with the VirtualBox X driver and thus supports resizing the screen in X just fine...

[Marxam]

Not sure if it's top secret or anything, just a disc I need to use for my job. It's called WorkBooth.

[Leak]

Not sure if it's top secret or anything, just a disc I need to use for my job. It's called WorkBooth.

Did you try the boot options they list here?

It also says "NOTE: 1024x768 is the maximum resolution Workbooth can use. This is because a QA application that is running on all agent desktops requires that 1024x768 be the maximum resolution."

[Marxam]

I hate to say it, but I've since given up on it and I just boot the CD using my normal system. Sure it locks me out of my entire hard drive, but it auto-fits to my 1366x768 monitor res.

Also: I have tried all the cheat codes, the machine still refuses to run in that res, it starts off in 1024x768 but snaps back into 800x600