I am somewhat new to running virtual box in headless mode and using VBoxHeadlessTray. The VBoxHeadlessTray has been updated for VirtualBox version 5.x on GitHub (under toptensoftware, latest updates by adhawkins). The other topic "VBoxHeadlessTray - free utility to run VMs in Windows tray" is still currently locked. I tried using VBoxHeadlessTray with VirtualBox 5.0, although wasn't sure that it was working correctly, or if I was using it correctly. I thought to post here. Is there any help that explains what these modes do?
Whenever I tried using VBoxHeadlessTray, after the virtual machine I selected has started, there are two options in the system tray icon to either "Open VirtualBox GUI" or "Open Remote Desktop". There also seems to be some options in the VirtualBox Manager with a dropdown under the Start arrow with "Normal Start", "Headless Start", or "Detachable Start" that I hadn't noticed before. After the virtual machine is started, I believe that it starts in "headless" mode since a window does not show up in the main taskbar. When I click on "Open VirtualBox GUI" from the VBoxHeadlessTray system tray icon menu, what happens is that it looks like it saves the machine state, then it loads the machine state in a new window that shows up on the main taskbar. However after that my virtual machine (Ubuntu 14) is non-responsive and I can't do anything with the mouse in the new virtual machine window. If I power the machine off completely and then start it normally from the VirtualBox manager, then everything works fine. I'm not sure if the issue is with the headless mode and how it switches between the two modes or if has something to do with the headless tray program.
Basically all I wanted was to minimize the virtual machine to the tray and I'm not sure what any of this headless mode stuff means