virtualbox.org

I just installed Virtualbox on a fresh install of Arch and I have a Win7 as a guest system. Every time I press ALT-TAB or any other special keys such as the Windows key, those keys are going to Linux (host) instead of Win (guest). This happens whether or not I'm on full screen mode.

I noticed if I hold the Windows key and press Alt-Tab, it correctly goes to the guest machine. How can I make it so I don't have to hold the Win key every time?

Thanks

Virtualbox 5.1.18
Arch Linux 4.10.5-1

Edit: I have Win 7 as a GUEST, not HOST. Sorry for the mistake

Try to turn off input/mouse integration.

NoNoNo wrote:Try to turn off input/mouse integration.

I did but had no success.

I noticed it's happening to all my VMs as well, not only the Win7 one. This wasn't happening when I had a Linux Mint host, so I believe it's some setting on Arch Linux that needs to be tweaked, but I have no idea what.

I just figured something out: I switched to gnome-classic and the Alt key is properly working now. It looks like it's an issue with gnome 3. I'm going to try to post this on gnome forums, but if anyone has faced this before and knows the solution, please feel free to reply

wildfire wrote:I noticed it's happening to all my VMs as well, not only the Win7 one.

wildfire wrote:It looks like it's an issue with gnome 3.

Moving from "Windows Guests" to "Linux Hosts".

wildfire wrote:It looks like it's an issue with gnome 3

Yes, another gnome3 adjustment.

Any ideas what to adjust? I can't find this setting anywhere.. :/

No comments on this one, just remember similar scenario.

Recently, I prefer xfce4 over gnome3 (that glitch of multi-task switch, such so on... the activities menu and fullscreen VMs... not work well... apologize for I can't describe precisely)

I've got the same issue with gnome 3 (on arch linux in my case): I have three arch linux instances, two use nvidia driver, one uses intel GPU, all three run gnome 3.22.
The one that uses the intel GPU with gnome 3.22 has the issue, the other two don't.

The one that has the issue with virtualbox, does not have such a problem with vmware: alt-tab and the windows key are handled by the guest, not the host.

muonpi wrote:I've got the same issue with gnome 3 (on arch linux in my case): I have three arch linux instances, two use nvidia driver, one uses intel GPU, all three run gnome 3.22. The one that uses the intel GPU with gnome 3.22 has the issue, the other two don't.

Hmm, interesting, I have arch linux with intel gpu as well. This issue wasn't happening when I was using Linux Mint though. Does it happen if you try with gnome-classic?

NoNoNo wrote:Recently, I prefer xfce4 over gnome3 (that glitch of multi-task switch, such so on... the activities menu and fullscreen VMs... not work well... apologize for I can't describe precisely)

I'm going to try xfce4 when I get home.

wildfire wrote:

NoNoNo wrote:Recently, I prefer xfce4 over gnome3

I'm going to try xfce4 when I get home.

You can just stay with gnome-classic as it works. Technically speaking xfce4 was not much advantage as others.

I had to give xfce4 a try as I haven't used it before , and the special keys worked fine on it, better than on gnome-classic actually where I was having to constantly press Right-Ctrl to give focus back to the guest machine, very annoying.
However I'm not familiar with xfce4 so I gave cinnamon a try, and it's working fine on it as well, which probably explains why it was working fine on my Linux Mint installation - I'm using cinnamon on it.

Thanks everyone for the help, I'll stick with cinnamon for now