virtualbox.org

have you all noticed thin screen ?

Systech wrote:I tested version 4.3.20 and the problem still exist. Then I tried a clean install (no previous VirtualBox) on onother PC and all is ok. So I think when removing version 4.3.12 some settings in the register are kept and that will cause the problem.

Confirmed.
Tried to delete all the remnants of Virtual Box after uninstalling it, recreating the whole new machine, etc... no difference.
I tried various combinations of VB version and Guest Additions versions, no difference.

Looking at the registry, there seem to be a lot of VirtualBox things even after uninstalling it.
Maybe Oracle should provide a *complete* uninstall option.

BTW, how can Oracle ignore this thread altogether?

How about you just take a peek in the .vbox file for your VM (while it isn't running, of course) and delete those two entries:

<ExtraDataItem name="GUI/LastGuestSizeHint" value="1580,986"/>
<ExtraDataItem name="GUI/LastNormalWindowPosition" value="429,98,1024,810,max"/>

I'm pretty sure that's what dictates the window size when you start a VM...

Leak wrote:I'm pretty sure that's what dictates the window size when you start a VM...

It does set the default size when the VM window is first created, but the guest OS can (and usually does) override this as it boots up.

I gave my solution early in this thread, and previous similar threads. Take or leave the advice as you wish. Basically, the problem is that the Windows guest has a nonsense display config stored in its registry, mapped to the current video mode. It will keep restoring that nonsense config until you force it to use a different video mode, and force a registry update. So, select any new display size other than the display size you previously wanted. If that works then reboot the VM - this hopefully resets the registry entries. Now you can select the display size you actually wanted - and reboot again.

Wroot reported that this didn't help him, only a reversion to 4.3.12 helped him. That may be so, but that doesn't change the fact that these symptoms have been around for a long time, and the fix is as I've outlined above. In fact here is a similar discussion from about 18 months ago, involving VBox 4.2.12.

@Mariolino: Oracle can "ignore this thread altogether" quite easily. These are user forums - Oracle don't officially participate here at all, everyone you see here is a user like yourself. I for example am not on the devteam and not an Oracle employee. But, I still help out - when I feel like it. See here if you want to buy an official Oracle VirtualBox support contract.

mpack wrote: the problem is that teh Windows guest has a nonsense display config stored in its registry

I said it in one comment, but i wasn't specific. Every VM i have behaves the same, even the ones which are only Live CDs running on Linux. Also the window squeezes right after you double click a machine in the list, so you can see a piece of VirtualBox black logo screen which i believe shows up even before booting an actual guest OS. So i don't believe the issue is with the guests. It's the VirtualBox itself or its settings on the host (maybe registry, i don't know).

I believe issue on that link is different. The other user had the image of his VM squeezed to some small 76x76 resolution, but even when he was maximizing the window the image stayed the same in the middle of the gray window. In our case you can drag the window to set it to some size, it always auto resizes to the smallest size and jumps into left upper corner of the host's screen when you release the mouse button. The only way is to press the maximize window. But then it doesn't stay in the same squeezed size. VM image actually stretches to accommodate that size (in my case it stays as 16xx x 9xx something, don't remember exact numbers, some nonsensical stretched resolution). So you can use VM if you really must, but you have to use this non-standard resolution and one VM takes all display space. I think it probably still tries to auto squeeze, but maximize button forces it to stay in this state.

I have tried changing resolution to say 1024 x 768 in my XP guest. It changes ok and even if VM window is maximized, the guest inside changes to 1024x768 and stays in the middle framed by a free gray space. I have tried restarting then and disabling maximize. Squeezes again. Have tried uninstalling guest additions and installing 4.3.20 ones. No effect. Though this guest is now running fine on VB 4.3.12 (using 4.3.20 GA)

P.S. while using VB 4.3.20 i have tried to setup a new machine, added a Live CD (UBCD using linux to boot) and it behaves the same, though it only squeezes at launch and you can drag the window later and it stays that way. But the initial squeezing is there when adding completely new machine. It's like VB 4.3.20 is interfering with something on my system (and others). I would suspect video drivers, but we have different setups/VGAs here.

mariolino wrote:
Looking at the registry, there seem to be a lot of VirtualBox things even after uninstalling it.
Maybe Oracle should provide a *complete* uninstall option.

Try uninstalling it with Revo Uninstaller on a highest mode. This should clean as many left-over registry keys as possible.

Even if you can fix this by wiping all the remnants of VB 4.3.12, installing 4.3.20 and installing all VMs from a scratch, it is obviously not a solution for most of the users. I have many VMs setup with a testing environments and i don't have time to rebuild all of them. And what if some 4.3.xx decides to do this again? It is better to find a real cause of this and fix it in the code, if possible.

mpack wrote:@Mariolino: Oracle can "ignore this thread altogether" quite easily. These are user forums - Oracle don't officially participate here at all, everyone you see here is a user like yourself. I for example am not on the devteam and not an Oracle employee. But, I still help out - when I feel like it. See here if you want to buy an official Oracle VirtualBox support contract.

First apologise for asking support as if I had a customer contract, I appreciate this is all free to me.

I think what you are suggesting: to change settings in the Windows Guest does not apply to my case.
I have a Linux Guest. Maybe I should have opened a new thread to avoid confusion.

For this exact reason I did open a ticket

https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/13574

describing the exact problem I have, with all the logs normally required. Let me know if I can provide more.

My Linux Guest works well. No issues there.
It is only the window onto this guest display that *cannot* be made wider that one screen on the host display (I have 3 screens).
Whenever I try to resize it (on the host) to more that 1 screen (in width of course), the window resizes, but as soon as the mouse movement stops or I release the button, it will go back to the 1 screen width.
Sometimes the underlying Linux Guest stays at the requested size (i.e. more than 1 screen), but as the host window is smaller, there will be a horizontal scrollbar.
Other times, the linux guest os display is automatically resized to the host disaply to 1 screen width and no scrollbars are needed.

Is this the same issue?

I've just tried to resize both displays to a different resolution and the problem is exactly the same.
Delete the .vobx entries. No difference.

If I untick "Adjust Window Size" in the view menu, the host window is resizable normally (to more that 1 screen). As soon as I tick it again, the host window is resized to 1 screen.
To me it looks a bug in the "Adjust Window Size" in the host part of it (Win 7)

Andrea

I have found a workaround.

1) Tick AutoAdjustWindow size and do the normal resize.
2) it misbehaves and immediately resize to 1 screen, but the guest OS is at the desired size
3) Untick AutoAdjustWindow and resize the host window to the same (basically where the scrollbars disappear)
4) done

@mariolino: I don't know enough about Linux to know if you have a similar problem. Linux guests do jump to a preferred display size during boot, so they obviously store a size preference internally, so corruption of that saved setting may be possible. All I know for sure is that it's a well known problem on Windows systems, whether physical or virtual.

I wonder if mariolino is have an issue with two different size monitor. Linux freedesktop has had an issue for a long time in some Debian based OSes even on metal, where the second monitor has various issues if it is not the same size ( exactly ). Not sure about RPM based.

Perryg wrote:I wonder if mariolino is have an issue with two different size monitor. Linux freedesktop has had an issue for a long time in some Debian based OSes even on metal, where the second monitor has various issues if it is not the same size ( exactly ). Not sure about RPM based.

Not sure I follow.
In windows 7 I have 3 screens to the same resolution
In Fedora it appears always as a single screen with a resolution of whatever the host window size is.
Now each screen is at 1280x1024, in Fedora I have 2549x959 (more or less 2 screens width and minus the height of the host window title, border decorations)

One thing that might shed some light is an other one:

since I unselected Auto Resize and Auto Adjust in the Host View menu, and set the host window to more or less 2 screens, Windows 7 does not resize the window to 1 screen when I come back from the screen saver. This has always happened to any version of VB and other applications (e.g. Visual Studio) which I normally use spanning 2 screens, but get (most of the times) resized to 1 after a period of lock due to screensaver.

Now the host VB window stays to the size I select even after a night of screensaver.

Regards

The exact same happen on my Windows 7 Computer too (GTA 970 graphic, Windows XP SP3 virtual machine) The problem occurred when upgrading to VM 4.3.20. After reading this tread I have tried all suggestions without any changes and assume this is a registry problem. I have Revo uninstaller, but it does not list VM in uninstall list.

But what is worse is that when program captures my mouse, it does so only in a small rectangle on lower right of the VM machine window. Possibly only about same small size that VM starts with ? Moving mouse cursor out of this rectangle moves mouse cursor out of the virtual machine it should have been captured in !
This makes Windows XP in VM useless....

I assume a Linux VM would work as it does not capture mouse cursor this way.

Installing VM 4.3.12 makes everything to work perfectly, so I can wait for a new version that fixes this, or a suggestion to clean the register for old VM key's

MortenB wrote:I have Revo uninstaller, but it does not list VM in uninstall list.

It was meant to uninstall VirtualBox itself, not a VM. Search for Oracle VirtualBox. If Revo doesn't show it, does it show it in Programs and Features? Btw, you will have to wipe all the settings for VirtualBox (Revo won't touch them maybe, so manually search in you user/Appdata (also Roaming and Local)) so you will have to reattach your VM. Not sure if using the old vhd disk will work. Maybe you will have to even reinstall this XP VM.

wroot wrote:

MortenB wrote:I have Revo uninstaller, but it does not list VM in uninstall list.

It was meant to uninstall VirtualBox itself, not a VM. Search for Oracle VirtualBox. If Revo doesn't show it, does it show it in Programs and Features? Btw, you will have to wipe all the settings for VirtualBox (Revo won't touch them maybe, so manually search in you user/Appdata (also Roaming and Local)) so you will have to reattach your VM. Not sure if using the old vhd disk will work. Maybe you will have to even reinstall this XP VM.

I have mixed Virtualbox and VM here, sorry. It was of course Virtualbox that was not present in Revo. Although I have deleted the Virtualbox folder in my User\, I did not think of AppData, Roaming and Local folders, this is worth checking. Thanks !
Seems that I have become too much of a Linux user

Uninstalling and reinstalling VirtualBox on the host will do absolutely nothing if the problem is in the guest registry.