Alt-Tab not working on Fedora 25

[laz_firtuna]

Hey. I do lots of research on net but I couldn't find any solution to my problem.

My host machine is Fedora 25 and I have two guest OS (Kali Linux and Windows 10). Both in my guest OSs every shortcut works properly(Ctrl+C etc.). But alt+tab and Windows key shortcuts doesn't work. Even i activate or deactivate host key (Right Ctrl) it doesn't change anything. Please help me?

[MarcinK]

Hi,

Have the same problem. Please advise on what to do?

[erdeslawe]

Have you tried ALT, ALT+TAB when you are in the Guest?

[MarcinK]

yeah.. it works when I do:
right alt + left alt + tab ( and have to click enter when I choose windows I want to go to... )
That's combination of 4 keys in total.... Is there a way to change it?

[socratis]

First of all, you have to clearly state what is your host key (HostKey). It may be Alt, it may not be Alt, it may be the Right-Alt, it may be the Application key. You have got to be clear in your description, and that will help you understand how and why it works as it does.

Pressing Alt-Tab can mean one of two things; you intend it to go to the host, or you intend it to go to the guest.

• If your guest has the keyboard focus, then Alt-Tab works within the guest. The guest doesn't know your host's processes so it's going to "cycle" through the guest's own processes.
• If you want to remove the keyboard focus from the guest, you press the HostKey. Then if you press Alt-Tab, that gets directed to the host. The host doesn't know your guest's processes so it's going to "cycle" through the host's own processes.

So, if your guest has the focus and you want to switch to another application in the host, you have to press: HostKey, Alt-Tab. Is there anything in that logic that doesn't work as intended?

[MarcinK]

Hi Socratis,

Thanks for your answer. My host key is right ctrl. But either clicking it or pressing it doesn't change anything and I still have to use alt+alt+tab+enter (meaning I cannot do it with single hand ). Before upgrade when focus was on guest (in full screen mode of course) I could do alt+tab in guest with no problem and when wanted to go to host needed to change the focus to one of the host windows. Is it how it will be from now on, or is there a way to make it how it was?

[socratis]

(in full screen mode of course)

When exactly did full-screen become "of course" ?

I'm sorry, but the default case (the "of course" case), is not full-screen, it's windowed mode. If you're not using the defaults you should have clearly stated that from the original post.

So, let me ask you what happens when you're not in full-screen? When you press the HostKey, do you see the keyboard/mouse icon change? There are specific icons to signify its change, just hover over it and wait for the tooltip.

Before upgrade when focus was on guest (in full screen mode of course) I could do alt+tab in guest with no problem and when wanted to go to host needed to change the focus to one of the host windows.

I'm sorry, but what you are talking about, still doesn't make sense. If your guest is in full-screen mode, you do NOT see any of your host's windows, you see ONLY the guest's windows and desktop. Are you maybe implying "seamless mode"?

That's the only case where you could see both the host's and the guest's windows at the same time. Then specifically clicking on a host's window would change the focus. If not, as I said the guest cannot know the host's processes, and vice versa. Therefore, it cannot switch from the host to the guest. By definition!

Is it how it will be from now on, or is there a way to make it how it was?

I will not know what the answer is, until you clear a couple of points. See above.

[MarcinK]

1) Same behaviour is for Full-screen mode and windowed mode (meaning I need to use alt+alt+tab+enter to switch windows in guest) I do not use seamless mode but it also works same as windowed and full-screen. Using alt+tab changes me between host applicaitons.

2) When I am not in full-screen mode and click my host key I can see in bottom that icon changes:

host_key_off.png (6.24 KiB) Viewed 5352 times

host_key_on.png (6.3 KiB) Viewed 5352 times

I have it automatically set to on in: input --> keyboard --> keyboard settings --> virtual machine tab

3) I am working on 3 monitors at the same time ( 2 of them are guest and 1 is host ) Still when I use only my laptop screen same situation takes place. When working on a single screen I changed the focus by going to the top toolbar and minimising the guest.

Hope that clarifies all.

Additionally when I am in guest and have a focus on a web browser and then hit alt+f4 instead of closing my web browser it wants to close the whole virtual machine instead...
This behaviour is the same in windowed/full-screen mode.

[rowet]

I am seeing this same behavior on Fedora 26.

I am running a Windows 7 guest on VirtualBox 5.2.12 r122591 (Qt5.9.4) on a Fedora 26 host. Right ctrl is the host key.

I cannot seem to make alt-tab in the guest work. The capture settings don't seem to matter. No matter what I do, when I hit alt-tab with the Windows guest active, another Fedora window is brought up. I can't make Windows see the alt-tab sequence and correctly cycle through panes. The guest also isn't capturing the windows start button key presses. Alt-F4 wants to close the VirtualBox guest window. Everything else works fine (ctrl-c registers, alt-del sends ctrl-alt-del, etc.).

I am using a single monitor. I have no unusual windowing systems or device drivers running. It's just stock Fedora 26.

Any guidance would be appreciated.