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Can't change the screen resolution in XP Guest

Posted: 10. Oct 2014, 02:14
by Docfxit
I can't start the guest OS (XP 32bit). From VirtualBox Manager I select Start (I only have one guest). I see the black Oracle VirtualBox window. I see the first black XP startup screen. It freezes on the next Blue XP windows is starting up screen that is way to large.

This started happening when the guest window was too small. Within the guest I changed the resolution to it's maximum.
Now when I am on the Window is starting up screen, selecting View, The Auto-resize Guest Display is greyed out.
The Adjust Window Size doesn't do anything.
The Machine Session Information says Screen Resolution 1600x1200x32
This PC has a maximum screen resolution of 1366x768.

I have tried running this bat file with the guest off.
VirtualBoxSetScreenResolution.bat

Code: Select all

cd "C:\Programs\Virtualbox"
vboxmanage setextradata "XP" "CustomVideoMode1" "800x600x32"
cmd
It runs fine with no errors:
Image

XP still doesn't start up.

I have also tried running the command with 1024x768.

I noticed after running the command the XML file in C:\Users\Doug\.VirtualBox\VirtualBox.xml
doesn't show any change in ExtraDataItem.

I have tried to add VBoxGuestAdditions.iso
The settings say it's installed.
I don't think it's installed correctly.

Re: Can't change the screen resolution in XP Guest

Posted: 10. Oct 2014, 03:21
by Perryg
First you need to undo what you did with the custom resolution.
Next you still need to install the guest additions ( in the guest ). The logs show they are not installed.

Oh and the changes were added to the guests .vbox file, not the xml which is a global setting control file.

Re: Can't change the screen resolution in XP Guest

Posted: 10. Oct 2014, 03:59
by Docfxit
I was able to see the entire screen after I ran this bat file:

VirtualBoxSetScreenResolution.bat

Code: Select all

cd "C:\Programs\Virtualbox"
VBoxManage setextradata global GUI/MaxGuestResolution any
How can I get the guest additions installed properly?

I have tried multiple ways and I can't seem to get them to install properly.

How will I know guest additions is installed properly?
The settings show it's installed now. I did suspect it wasn't installed properly.

Thank you,

Docfxit

Re: Can't change the screen resolution in XP Guest

Posted: 10. Oct 2014, 04:51
by Perryg
The settings will show that the guest additions ISO is mounted in the virtual CD/DVD drive. Open the file manager in the guest and start the install from there. After that you can look at the session information on the guest and it will show that they are installed. Click on the machine tab at the top left corner and the session information

Re: Can't change the screen resolution in XP Guest

Posted: 11. Oct 2014, 18:11
by Docfxit
Thank you very much,

Docfxit